Things are a little hectic this time of year so I haven't had as much time to work on tweaking the down version. I have been trying no-see-um mesh sewn to strips of heat seal nylon to make internal baffles. All of my sleeping pads thus far have been sealed through. Think sewn threw sleeping bag versus I beam style baffled construction. I have tested mesh baffles in my pillows and it works great. It only saves 1.5g on my standard sized pillow but for a full sized sleeping pad its in the neighborhood of 30-40g. The only down side is construction time goes up substantially. By request I have custom made several down and synthetic pads thus far. So far they have all been tailored to each users specific needs instead of more standardized like the uninsulated pads. I'm looking into having a custom fabric made for these but its still a long ways off.

bender,
very nice stuff you got going on here. I am oh so inspired to try this out myself, building a DAM and some air beams.

I'm a hammock camper so coming up with a custom design would be HUGE for me (us). It's the shoulder area that needs a bit more coverage so a couple of extra tubes off that direction would be just great! also, my hammock (warbonnet blackbird) has a foot box so few small tubes off that direction would complete a perfect design. I'll have to play around with my existing pad, adding those extra components, and get the exact dimensions for the new shape.

even though I have zero experience with down material I'm willing to give this a try, or better yet have someone with experience (you) give it a go first. I still have to make my own air beams for another project (related) so I'll be starting out with that first, then work my way up to the tougher ideas (dam).

so you're trying to make baffles? I'm having a bit of trouble seeing that being done and what material you're using.

it's time to get a sewing machine and other equipment, I finally got most of the pieces of my puzzle and now it's time to put it all together!

thanks again!
dennis

Dennis let us know how your project turns out if you decide to do it. What do you mean by air beams? I have been trying out no-see-um baffles sewn to nylon. It works great but takes forever to make.

I completely ran out of valves & material after the holiday rush. I just had the latest material delivered today and the weight is slightly better than before. For the standard 70d material a 60" mummy pad is now only 9.8oz! I will be adding XP insulated air mats & more standard sizes to Kooka Bay shortly.

Edited by Bender on 01/15/2010 20:43:55 MST.

Bender,

Do you think it's possible to make a double-wide version (say 44 or 46" x 72") for two? Girlfriend and I want to eliminate the hassle of trying to strap together two sleeping pads, only to always have a cold spot in the middle anyways. Down-filled at least R6 is needed.

Also, I'm in the process of drawing up some ideas for a foot pump. Not sure what it will weigh but I must say that after using an Exped Pump mat there is no way I want to go back to filling mats with a BA Pumphouse if I can avoid it. Maybe there is some way of incorporating such a pump into your mat's design to save the weight of a separate pump?

What about using a bicycle pump. This one, the zefyl x-light carbon, is 50 g.


You could make an attachment to the valve or perhaps just mount the bike tube valve directly into the mat?

Bike pumps are designed for low volume, high pressure. Air mats are very high volume, very low pressure. It would take forever and be a lot of effort.

Bradley 45-46" is the widest I can go by making the baffles go horizontal. Otherwise the widest would be 40-41" with baffles going vertical. I can do goose down or Climashild XP insulation.

I'm still very interested in this project and was wondering how the how-to guide is coming along. The less mistakes I make the first time around, the better.

Thanks!

Nick

I came across this thread on Hammock Forums and being one that likes to make a lot of my own gear and cut down weight as much as possible I found this thread very intriguing. Wanting to try this project out myself, I went to questoutfitters.com and they have 2 types of heat sealable fabric that they sell and both are $6.99 a yard. The first is 200 denier Heat sealable Oxford, and the other is a 70 denier Heat Sealable Taffeta. Both are 100% nylon. I have not purchased either of these but I have made many purchases over the last year from Quest and they are always top notch to deal with and their shipping prices are some of the lowest I have bought from.

As I recall this product is a 30 denier, so is much lighter than 70 or 200 but will be more fragile.
For the DAM you may look at Skunk Works pages. For his DAM, he made silk tubes filled with down. Using this technique you would make 1) several silk tubes filled with down, then make the air mattress (3 sides sealed) insert the silk/down tubes then finish seal the 4th side.
-Dale

There,s a post on the blog somewhere about a homemade or rather home-tweaked ultra-lite pump. Here it is:

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=27928

Edited by obxcola on 02/26/2010 21:23:24 MST.

JB Weld is found in auto supply stores. It can withstand high heat, so is used in engine part repairs. It must it be a kin of epoxy, since it is fsold in a two tube kit with the ingredients then mixed to harden.

(used in homemade alcohol stoves)

Edited by rambler on 03/01/2010 17:47:06 MST.

There are a few different types of J B Weld. You want to make sure you have the kind you expect.

--B.G.--

I have never joined a forum such as this where I have been so absolutly blown away from the innovation!

Been here 2 weeks and already have 120+ bookmarks... which is quite a mess and I've been saving pictures along with the url as names... so I can refference back..

Totally blown away by everyone here!

Another alternative to the iron and not as hot as a soldering iron would be a ski/snowboard repair gun or pistol used for melting and distributing "ptex" into a gouge in the base of a ski or snowboard. Some models are around $40.
http://www.slidewright.com/proddetail.php?prod=K106C&cat=52

I have been thinking about the downs in the air mattress:
In order to prevent the down from leaving your mattress when you deflate it, you'd want to install some kind of a 'net' on the inside of the valve. probably an inch or two away from the valve in order to increase the net’s surface area.
However, when storing the mat at home inbetween your trips, the air tight mattress is not a good place to keep the downs. It is too constricted and they have no way to ‘breath’ which downs should. Thus, i think it is best to somehow make that net mentioned above removable. In this way you could remove the net and then let let all the down out and keep them in a better siuted place inbetween backpacking trips. Letting them out should be fairly easy, just by deflating it most of them should exit. And if you deflate the mat’s air along with the downs into a proper nylon bag right away, it should not be too messy (i.e. not loosing too many downs). Also, you’d want to take a very tight woven nylon bag for this with avery small opening preferably one that you can ‘attach’ to the valve of your mat. In this way, when you want your downs back in your mat, you can just attach the storing bag’s valve to the deflated mat’s valve, open the valves and pump up the valve with the storing bag. (in order to make this work, the nylon of the storing bag needs to be woven tightly enough to use it as a pumping bag, yet breathable, else you had gained nothing.)

The Problem is i’m not too sure as how to install that removable net in the mattresses valve. What are you guys thinking about this?

Another concern: has anyone tested the mat with a radiation barrier (solar blankt or space blanket) in order to increase the mat’s r-value (clo)? In the NB fugu jacket this seems to be working quite well. And is thermarest’s neoair not having one of those radiation barriers as well?

David

Bender: what sort of weight would a 72" mummy pad with climashield XP come in at? Would it be as warm as a Thermarest prolite 4?

Rog with some of the new material I have a 72x20x3.5" mummy with Climashild XP can be as little as 12oz. Compared to a Prolite this would be 3.5x thicker with a slightly higher R value.

David I have already made numerous down air mats so I have learned quite a bit. Any method to keep the down perfectly in place or have it removable kills the weight savings. The down is not going to be highly compressed unless the R value were very high. Even when down is compressed it retains a great deal of its effectiveness.

Bender i first have to say i love the work you have done.

I have a question regarding the baffles. How do you make the baffles and what material do you use?

I am currently working a a few DIY projects and this was one thing that i was trying to figure out.

> What are you guys thinking about this?

I'm thinking that it's not a practical proposition. I really can't see that the down would:

a) come out entirely through the valve
b) be able to be blown back in again

I think the valve opening would simply be too small. then there's the issue of re-distributing the down, even if you can blow it back in.

What you might do is add a second valve, and blow a gentle, continuous stream of air through the mat in order to remove any moisture that has collected in the down, whilst not moving the down around within the mat. If you warmed the mat whilst doing it, it would assist in the evaporation and elimination of the mositure.

I have an Insul-Max MaxThermo, and wish it had a second valve so I could do this; you can see moisture in the thing when you deflate it fully. One day I'll build a cycling inflate/deflate pump to try to address this...