I just bought a new sleeping bag from Feathered Friends and decided on the "Nano" material. I was convinced by the sales person that it was about as waterproof as Epic, but quite a bit lighter. The only reference to it on the Feathered Friends' web site is this . The only thing I came up with from a google search is this. If that is the case, then the fabric itself is probably a lightweight nylon, with this treatment applied during the milling of the product. Does anyone know anything about this?

Don't know anything about this fabric. Sounds a bit like Epic by Nextec though. The advertisement about the waiter spilling coffee and it rolling off of one's pants reminds me of an incident.

I was wearing some LLBean Epic by Nextec treated pants at work one day. At lunch time a co-worker who backpacks came by to chat a bit. He hadn't heard of Epic, so I gave him a quick demo. Took my water bottle with a sport-cap top and gave a quick squeeze onto my left thigh. Most of the water rolled right off. However, my squeeze was just a tad too forceful and a bunch of the drops impacted and rebounded off of my LEFT thigh and struck my PD sock on my RIGHT ankle and the water rolled down into my right shoe. Boy, did we both have a good chuckle!

I was at the PCT Trailfest in Seattle yesterday, and a FF representative was there with a couple of sleeping bags on display. If I recall correctly, one was a hummingbird model (?) with Nano fabric; he had pooled some water on it some hours earlier to display the water resistance. The other bag was a woman's bag I think, with Epic fabric. From the conversation it was clear that Nano and Epic are different. If I recall correctly he said that the Nano is inherent with the material itself, though I think it also had a DWR (?).

The impression I had at first was that this were truly waterproof, but it seemed like he was backing away from that in the discussion (?). Still, he didn't just pool the water (actually did this on both the fabrics) but rubbed the under-water fabric with his hand to show that even adding that mechanical action didn't allow water through.

My wife and I had recently bought sleeping bags, so I have to confess I wasn't paying intense attention to all of this, but it sounded pretty neat. I can accept that there are different degrees of quality to various DWR treatments, but don't know how to evaluate them either for wearability (need to reapply) or overall effectiveness. Or for that matter, how they effect the ability of a down bag to dry out once it does get wet.


Brian

http://www.schoeller-textiles.com/nanosphere/main.asp?site=nanosphere&language=english&webpageID=255

sorry i don't know how to clean up the link on bpl...

http://www.schoeller-textiles.com/nanosphere/main.asp?site=nanosphere&language=english&webpageID=255

Thanks Graham (and Sam). Cool web site. Interesting that their North American office is in the same town as FF (Seattle). The link matches the other info I gathered and is what I assumed (that "Nano" is a finishing technique applied to a fabric). I still don't know the key facts (from an ultralight standpoint) which is how much this weighs. The lightest I could imagine is .85 oz. (using .85 oz ripstop nylon and a finishing process that doesn't weight anything). That is awfully optimistic, so I have no idea what to expect. Pity the Feathered Friends web site isn't more informative.

Also (and this goes out to everyone who has wondered) to make a link show up in a reply, write <a href="www.whatever">description</a>. Some forums automatically do that for you (BPL does not). Perhaps BPL could add this to a FAQ for their forums (since this does come up quite a bit). Better yet, they could automatically change all strings that start with www or http:// and turn them into links (using the same name as the link).

Edited by rossbleakney on 03/27/2007 21:39:30 MDT.

Thanks Sam & Ross...I know html, but this is one of the only forums I know of that allows html markup.

Adding a Schoeller nano treatment is ridiculously light. The headers I have here in the office imply >5gsm...

Just call FF and ask them what a square meter of the fabric weighs...they'll tell you.

This adds a little to the picture

Edited by photonstove on 04/01/2007 08:12:50 MDT.