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aspen
12-16-2006, 17:14
Does it matter warmth wise if your vest (Marmot) is a 650 or 900 fill? The 900's fabrics seem very thin and flimsy. I get mixed info on this.

Susan:-? a.k.a. Aspen

Vi+
12-16-2006, 19:13
Susan/Aspen,

You wonder (Post #1), “Does it matter warmth wise if your vest (Marmot) is a 650 or 900 fill? The 900's fabrics seem very thin and flimsy. I get mixed info on this.”

How cold or warm you feel is determined by how much heat escapes your body. Dead air space retards heat loss. Everything which mingles with air retards heat loss. Down is the lightest weight fill. A constant mass of a particular lot of down fill is tested to see how much it is compressed when a constant weight presses upon it. The higher the number the better the loft. 900 fill is considered excellent, 650 fill is something you need not mention in social conversation. Goose down expands more (compresses less) than duck down, hence is considered “better.” Feathers crush, losing much of their "recovery" value, and weigh more than down.

Some people - they’re probably the perpetually gloomy ones - consider the performance of high fill downs (high numbered) becomes indistinguishable from that of slightly lower rated down fills after repeated compression; stuffings into bags and packs.

I doubt this, suspecting while all fills lose loftiness, higher rated fill loses loft more slowly. I have a very high loft sleeping bag which I ordered as an “overfill” which is very old. I treated it badly through poor storage and it still bounced back after washing. I would try to buy the highest loft goose down fill jacket or sleeping bag available and specify “overfill.”

I wouldn’t do this with a vest.

Jackets tend to be more restrictive about the top opening, front opening, and sleeves than are vests. More heat escapes a vest from its larger openings. The point is, high loft down may not be worth the extra expense when considering a vest.

Baffling is another consideration. Baffling is not really baffling (heh, heh, heh), but you should visit an outfitter which handles low to high end products; look at and ask about the baffling in the sleeping bags they sell. Baffle designs are the same in bags, jackets, and vests.

As baffling gains in complexity it becomes heavier - there is more fabric - unless the material used in the baffling becomes more delicate. Due to the greater heat loss from a vest, I would stay with simple sewn-through straight tube baffling.

Customers buying high loft down pay more. The premium is for less weight. Most of the weight of down gear comes from the fabric, stitching, zipper, snaps, etc. To please the customer seeking less weight, "very thin and flimsy" fabric is often used. I wouldn't be too concerned about how delicate the fabric is, unless you're concerned about appearances and you're rough on your gear. The exterior fabric patches fairly readily.

aspen
12-16-2006, 19:32
Thanks so much for the information.

Aspen