After many weeks of designing and sewing my new quilt I am at the fill the quilt with down stage. I am already in hot water with my other projects making a mess in the house so you can imagine the look on my wife's face when I announced my newest project...down sleeping quilt. I really want to do this with the least mess possible.

I have calculated how much down goes in each chamber and have read everything I can find, but still lack the knowledge to execute a fill using a shop vac.

What I understand is a layer of noseeum is placed at the end of one of the extensions. I assume to block the down from being sucked all the way up into the vac. It looks like next I need to place a container on a scale and tare it out, next I place my down in the container. I assume it is now time to vaccum up my desired 26 grams of down that go into the vac's extension.

Questions - first am I correct up until this point and second how do I get the down out of the extension and into the baffle?

As always this groups help is so greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Jamie

move the extension tube to the exhaust of the vac. Put extension tube about 1/2 to 3/4 way down baffle and turn it on. Make sure you pull the vac tube up the baffle, but not out of the baffle.

Only other thing you may want to mention is that you will want to make sure and tighten the loose material around where the entension tube is inserted into the baffle when you reverse the airflow to push the down out of the tube and into the baffled compartment. Otherwise, down will also fly out of the opening and into the room. Other then that... I think you have it!

Edited by kegelhoff on 11/03/2009 16:02:43 MST.

if you have a true Shop Vac, the extension will fit OVER the hose. tape mesh to the HOSE and then fit the extension wand over the mesh, being careful not to damage it.

you are going to need one heck of a Shop Vac to pick up 26 grams of down in one go.. mine is a 6hp monster so its not a problem..

then, turn off the Vac and carefully remove the wand as you place your fingers over the down which will be at the mesh.. hold the down clump while you stick that end of the down into a chamber, and push it down as far as you want with just the tip sticking out. you can now gently PUFF the down out of the extension by using your breath.

i dont suggest using the shop vac to blow the down into the chamber, or youre going to be in a world of snow..!!

if your Vac extension fits INSIDE the hose, then you'll tape the mesh to the extension and you wont have to grab the down clump with your hands... the mesh will handle that task.

be ready to switch on the Vac in case some flyaways go for a ride..

mike

i try not to suck up more than 10g at a time as it gets hard to blow it out (i use my mouth too). I have 2 extensions one with the mesh taped on and the other on the end so i can fill the chamber and take the whole thing off the vac without worrying about down falling out then put it at least 1/2 way in the baffle and pinch the top of the baffle around the tube and blow like crazy.

I recommend a large container holding down on your scale. 26g per baffle sounds like that quilt will have lots of down and it is a pain to have to refill all the time. I use a trash can that has a scalloped side so i can still read the scale. Now if only my scale wouldn't shut off between fill ups, thats annoying.

-Tim

Once again you guys have provided the exact answers I needed and within hours!

Mike, Your instructions on the hammock forum were really helpful.

Tim, As far as the grams go my quilt is 78" long. The top portion is 52" wide to the midpoint. It tapers at the midpoint to 40" wide at the foot. I'm using 12 oz of down in 13x baffles (6" wide). I am assuming I will get 11 oz inside the bag which means the top baffles will get ~25 grams (7 top baffles). The next 6 baffles taper ... 24g, 23g, 22g, 22g, 21g, 20g. I hope this sounds reasonable.

I should have the down filled and the quilt finished by this weekend. I will post pics when finished.

Thanks all, Jamie

Edited by jshortt on 11/03/2009 20:00:53 MST.

Here's an MYOG Down Quilt article which gives some instructions.

Cheers

what is your loft goal?

I wasn't saying its too much down, just that with that amount of down you won't want to refill a small dish between every fill up.

-Tim

Roger, I have read your article several times...it is what started this insanity. I learned alot from it. Thanks much for writing it!

Tim, My baffles are 2". I'm hoping to get a full loft of 2.5". I'm using a Momentum90 thru-hiker kit so I have 12 oz of down to work with. I'm going to use as much as I can get in the baffles.

Jamie

Its done! I just wanted to say thanks to everyone for the help. The advice was just what I needed. The quilt is finished and it lofts up nicely. I will posts pics when I get a chance.

I took the day off to do it while my wife wasn't home. She knew what I was doing and when she got home she couldn't even tell I had done the down in the house.

Thanks, Jamie

congrats!

-Tim