Materials
Equipment made with passion, tested by you.
THE DOWN
Goose down is the only product which brings together these special characteristics: low weight, excellent insulation, extremely compressible, and very importantly, it regulates the humidity of the air inside it. So, when the temperature outside changes, it’s just as warm inside. Research is being done about its replacement. There are countless artificial fibres being made – synthetic down has also been produced, however nothing matches the quality of natural down. We hope that one day we will no longer pluck geese for down, as today we no longer skin seals for cross-country skiing…
Down can be collected from different birds. The characteristics of the down are not the same. Besides the down which grows next to the skin, it can be selected from among the feathers. In the cycle of gathering down, the quality differs. It also differs according to the age of the birds, the feed, species and area they come from. Then, not all feathers are new. They can be used for a year or for ten years, and then the down is sorted from them. The newer the down, and the less feathers, the higher the quality. There are countries with tradition in processing feathers.
There are specialised farms which raise birds for feathers and down. There are complicated technologies of sorting, washing and depositing feathers and down. Feathers and down are combined in order to obtain specific characteristics. Finally, feathers can be chopped up and used instead of down…
The unit of measurement for down is CUIN. This is the capacity for expansion of a certain weight of down in a defined space. There are different standards for down quality. The most common are the American, European and Japanese standards. Good down is that of 550 CUIN, 600 is very good, and excellent is 700-800 CUIN.
THE FIBER
As in any area of activity, it’s normal that producers’ trends will coincide with the demands of the consumers. As a consequence, we also have a wide range of materials for satisfying the market for high-quality outdoor equipment. Choosing materials for our sleeping bags and clothing is done based on the destination and use of the product, with all its implications (insulation, protection, distance, transport, time spent, thermal range, usage). So, leaving aside the complicated classifications of textiles and the products resulting from them, the Nahanny offer is structured on the types of locations where our articles are used, and we reserve the right to change the materials based on our clients’ requests. The fibrous composition of the materials influences the mass, resistance and other characteristics of the materials. The difference in thickness of fibres is not just about kilograms. Fibre weight is approximate. The exact mass of an article is noted in the product brochure, together with other specifications.
THE RESULT
THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW
The comfort temperature felt by a person in a sleeping bag or down-filled clothing varies, depending on diet, effort expended during the day, metabolism, underwear, direct/prolonged exposure to wind/snow/cold, the quality of the mattress, physical condition and training. The extreme temperature on a sleeping bag indicates the temperature at which the bag protects you from freezing. The thermal indication is not a rule, but an average, meant as a guide.
The advantages of using down are great. Down creates the best proportion of thermal insulation and comfort, compared with weight, volume and compression for transport.
A simple classification of sleeping bags divides them into three groups: cabin-camping, hunting/fishing/photo/bushcraft-camping and mountain-camping. In the first group are the sleeping bags used by people who enjoy vehicle-aided camping, cycle tourism, agro-tourism, urban tourism, or those who attend summer musical events held in the outdoors. The situation is different when we move to the mountaineering category. Here we’re talking about hikes at over 500-600m altitude, hiking, 4-season winter mountaineering, and caving or potholing (speleology). A different class is that including hang gliding, snowmobiles, vehicle-based treks, off-road motoring and expeditions.
In the mountaineering category, we have summer bags, 3-season bags (spring, summer, autumn), winter bags and bags for extreme conditions. There are a lot of different materials used both for the exterior and interior of bags. The differences are in the texture, thickness, colours, membranes, fibre composition and breathability.
Starting with the assumption that all sleeping bags are good, you need to know how to choose the right bag for you. A good sleeping bag is made of a medium-thickness material – neither too thick nor too thin. The quality of the handiwork can easily be seen by looking at the seams (straight), the length of the stitches (neither too big nor too small), the thickness of the thread and the details of the finishing. The quality of the hems, the matching of the various parts, the cut of the material, the ends of threads left on the outside, even the match of the colours and threads to the shade of the main material, all speak of the quality of work by the manufacturer. You can easily be tricked by pretty labels, by complicated brochures attached to the product. This happens if you don’t know what to look for, if you don’t do your research beforehand, if you buy something because it looks good and is made by a big brand…. Look carefully at the quality of the down in the article!
Look for an exterior material that is compressible, but also resistant to abrasion and intense use. We recommend a fibre composition like nylon (Polyamide), treated with silicone (Teflon), which is water-resistant and dries fast. An applied membrane will raise its water resistance even more, but will increase its weight and volume. For the interior, refuse a cotton lining. Choose polyester or polycotton, which don’t get absorb water, dry fast, and are friendly to the skin.
The quality of a sleeping bag is dependent, in 80% of cases, on the quality of the insulating material. Use the right bag in the right place. Look for a bag which can become as sealed as possible (with a hood and an adjustable thermal collar, and a protective cover to prevent heat loss along the length of the zip). Don’t forget that a good sleeping bag without a good mattress will “hold the cold in”.
The length of the sleeping bag should be 25-30cm longer than the height of the person who uses it. The width should be adapted to the user. The size of the bag influences the comfort, weight, volume and price.
The zip of the sleeping bag must have two sliders and the teeth should be plaited not injected , at least 7mm wide. At the bottom it’s important that there’s a material stopper, which stops the zip being broken if it’s forced completely open. At the top there’s a Velcro tab which stops it being accidentally opened during the night. For easier handling of the zips while wearing gloves, look for pulls are lengthened with cord, elastic or a chain (on which the brand’s logo is usually printed). The materials which are joined should be overcast to prevent fraying on the inside. It’s hard to see this detail, but a professional firm will do it anyway.
MATERIALE TERMOIZOLANTE - COMPARATIV
We can understand how synthetic materials insulate if we use terms like tiles (which overlap each other), layers, quilting, or strips (BEVATEX, HOLOFIBRA, POLARGUARD, HI LOFT 4, TREVIRA FILL, 3M THINSULATE LITE LOFT, DU PONT QUALOFIL 7, DU PONT HOLOFIL II). The aim is for the layers to expand, creating volume of air. The larger the volume of air created, the better the insulation.
Our natural product, down, can be understood if we associate it with the idea of “good-weather clouds”. Filling, inflatable, are other words we can use as metaphors. As we said, down is a unique natural material. It is made out of proteins and keratins which radiate out of a central point of a double spairal. Its insulating qualities are remarkable,but what makes is magic is the scale of comfort it creates. This is not just based on the fill capacity, but more specifically on the natural microclimate it manages to produce. Its quality depends more on its structure, which in turn takes into consideration the geographical location of the birds, the breed and age of the birds, the size of the flock, the quality of the feed, and the method used for gathering the down. In contrast to industrial methods of gathering down, manual collection maintains a very high level of insulation. Then, the non-chemical cleaning optimises the proportion, warmth and weight and maintains the natural oils of the down which give it its water-resistance. Because of these aspects, Nahanny doesn’t make compromises on the quality of down, and we import down directly from Germany. We decided to avoid using intermediary agents. If you were to compare a sleeping bag filled with goose down with one filled with duck down just by touch, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. However, goose down is more expensive and rarer, since it can be purified much better and has a better heat-weight ratio. Due to the superior quality of goose down, Nahanny has decided to use this type of down for all our products.
SEAMS
“Cold” seams and “warm” seams
On cold seams for synthetics, the layer of insulation can be sewn together with both layers of material (interior and exterior), just onto one material (the other being lining) or one layer on each material (with seams over each other, on the same vertical plan). These situations allow more or less thermal exchange from the inside of the bag to the outside. For warm seams for synthetic, there must be two or more layers of insulation. These are staggered on the interior-exterior materials, so that the seams are not over each other. Imagine a plain brick wall (without plaster). This solution has the advantage of a lower thermal transfer.
For cold seams for down, special compartments for holding the down are created by sewing the exterior material to the interior material, then these compartments are filled. Warm seams for down are made by applying special bands which fix the interior material to the exterior without these directly touching each other. In this way, “honeycomb” compartments are created, which do not allow the down to move from one part to the next, but create excellent thermal insulation. The same technology is used on the hood, feet and sides, in an H system, oblique or both over each other. Imagine two glasses of different sizes, one inside the other, in such a way that their sides do not touch.
CONCLUSIONS
Down provides thermal insulation which is hard to beat, and remains the best insulation for sleeping bags and clothing. It smooths out over all areas of the body, eliminating empty spaces, and warmth is instant. Although it has the disadvantage of a higher price tag, using down is recommended 100% because it has the best weight-volume ratio and exceptional comfort and thermal insulation. Synthetic insulation has a lower price, but to get a similar thermal insulation as down (without the microclimate generated by down!), we need a much larger volume and weight.
If you’re passionate about trips in nature or mountaineering, and you care about your comfort and health, it’s a good idea to use down. In order to choose the right type of sleeping bag, you need to know in which period of the year you’ll use it most, at what temperature, and where you want to travel. For every climate and destination, Nahanny can help you with its all-inclusive offer.
Brands do matter. A brand represents credibility, which is built over time, and based on results or performance. The hardest part is getting to this point. Of course, marketing policies and an openness of communication with the users of our products helps in this process. Nahanny exists from 2005 and has a rich portfolio with credibility gained from the experience of our clients, from Alaska to the South Pole, from Siberia to the Andes and from the Himalayas to the Alps. So it matters!