an old article that demonstrates nothing chnges

KEEP THE CARDS AND LETTERS COMING

I ordered a Ducksback 3XL Alaska Range Parka prior to the insulated hood announcement and the L-3 zip liner announcement in your Apr 21st 2017 newsletter.

As my order has not shipped, is it possible to still include it with the order? If yes, I can call with the credit card number.

The past two days in KS has 40-60F weather with rain and wind. The Ducksback zippered coat worked perfectly. I don't think I'll ever get tired of showing folks how the water runs off of the coat.

Best regards,

John

Jerry –

I have the Lamilite sweater that I wear under other parkas / coats that I could use with the Alaska Range Parka. Which one of the liners would best be substituted by the Lamilite Sweater? I am thinking of ordering the L3 and L12, using my sweater under the L3 liner if I need an intermediate step between the two.

I will be spending the winter of 2017 in Platinum, AK, and would like to have a pair of insulated bibs to go with the Alaskan Parka. Which of your insulated bibs do you recommend? Or, can you make me a pair of bibs using the Ducksback material to match the Alaskan Range Parka? Or is Ducksback too stiff for that use. By the way, your fish nets underwear was wonderful, especially this spring when worn under wading bibs and loose wool undies for goose hunting. Also could not do without my old pair of Lamilite Pacs, worn with your Lamilite socks. Not one instance of cold feet all winter when wearing that combination! Plus your Lamilite socks make my army surplus Gore-Tex winter combat boots wearable in medium cold work conditions.....without the Lamilite socks, my feet were soaked, and then cold. Was going to throw the boots away, but with your socks, they are usable when having to wade through diesel or oil spills, saving my good Wiggy's stuff for serious conditions!

M. Haught

My recommendation was the L-12 insulated bibs.

In the early 1990’s I started writing my articles and mailing them to any who asked for them. As time has gone by they have been published on the web site and sent to all who want them but they can also be viewed by non-subscribers. What follows is an article I wrote in 1992 that I found in my files. I think it is appropriate to be revisited.

THE DEGRADATION OF AN INDUSTRY

There are many ways an industry can be ruined, but the most successful method is when the manufacturers of that industry sanction their own demise.

The manufacturers serving the camping and /or outdoor market in general are in fact making every effort to destroy them-selves! (Today we know that they are no longer manufacturers since they who were manufacturers get all of their production at contractors in Asia.)

I will limit this discussion to the materials used for sleeping bags and cold weather garments.

In August 1991 while at the Outdoor Retailer exhibit two synthetic fiberfills were introduced to the market place for use as insulation in sleeping bags. Albany International introduced a product trade named Primaloft, you may recall coats made for the Peace Climb were insulated with this product and marketed by the L.L. Bean Co. They are no longer in the Bean catalog. (If memory serves correctly the climbers participating on the Peace Climb were so disappointed that they had to have all the garments replaced with down parkas at the time. Bean wisely stopped selling these items. However today you will find Primaloft parkas in the Bean catalog. What changed? Not the Primaloft, but the advertising dollars made available to Bean or any other company that wants to use the stuff and of course it is available where the Bean garments are made; ASIA! The use of Primaloft as insulation in sleeping bags was very short lived; it has been years since anyone used it.)

The second insulation introduced for use in sleeping bags was the 3-M Thinsulate Liteloft. (3-M did get a number of companies to invest in using this product I am sure based upon a large advertising campaign they had full page ads in all of the outdoor magazines with ridiculous verbiage such as a 20 degree bag having a 7.2 clo reading. According to the conversion chart of clo to temperature, that would give the bag a -10 F temperature rating. The weight was less than 3 pounds. Someplace in my files I have a copy of the ad. The model in the bag was Paul Cramer who was sales manager for Sierra Designs at the time. He later started Mountain Hardwear. One of the problems they has with this product had to do with the fact that it was a low melt batting and when people left their sleeping bags in the stuff sack in the trunk of their cars the low melt binder would liquefy and when it cooled it would harden and now all of the fibers were stuck together. Lite Loft as insulation in sleeping bags was also short lived, but not before it hurt the reputation of some companies as well as I believe their pocket books.)

Both companies (at that time) chose not to solicit Wiggy’s as an account or simply put the chose not to show me their respective product as a possible insulator for my line of sleeping bags. I suspect the reason they avoided me was because I would have rejected these products on the basis that they are unfit for use as a form of sleeping bag insulation. (They proved me correct.) when I did get to examine each of these products, I suggested they not be sold to manufacturers for sleeping bag insulation for the following reasons; 1- the density of the Lite Loft was lacking for the loft it presented and would not retain for any length of time the heat generated by the user. 2-the durability with respect to laundering was also sadly lacking. Each time one of these bags is laundered regardless of the machine the web structure would show signs of structural breakup. 3-loft degradation (loss of loft) would occur. As for the Primaloft the problems are even more revealing; 1-no loft to begin with. 2-the web structure is secured via placing the fiber between two sub-straights and them quilting the three components together. Keep in mind that each quilt stitch even though you do not see them ( back then they would have the manufacturer use the quilted insulation as a hung in batting so there were no visible quilt stitches on the lining or shell fabrics) but they are still cold spots. 3-when this product gets laundered, since it is an un-bonded fiberfill (that was how it was original made) product the fibers tend to twist into themselves similar to rolling a hand full of snow into a snowball further reducing the limited loft in the first place. I believe both of these products when used as insulation in sleeping bags represent a potential danger. Consider using either of these insulations in a sleeping bag rated to perform at a temperature of -20 degrees F. if you are 10 miles back in the woods and the temperature actually approaches -20 and you find that the bags are not performing you are not in a position to go any place after dark. Hence the danger!

Since these products have been put to use in sleeping bags each of the pit falls I have presented has soon shown itself to include many returns do to cold nights in the field. I am quite sure the amount of testing that was presented to the manufacturers by either of these companies was in adequate and that was perpetuated by the manufacturers themselves. (At the time I am quite sure there never was any testing ever done.) Had sufficient testing been done neither product would have been put on the market. Why they were will be answered at the end.

A second material presently being used by manufacturers that is misrepresented to the manufacturer as well as the general public is what is said to be a “WATERPROOF AND BREATHABLE” material. This ia a contradiction in terms. At this time man has yet to figure out how to make an inanimate object both waterproof and breathable. The definitions for both of these terms are as follows; BREATHABLE; fit or agreeable to breathe, or to be inhaled; respirable. WATERPROOF; impervious to water, capable of resisting the deleterious ((noxious, harmful, destroyer) action of water. All definitions come from the Oxford Unabridged Dictionary. Is it any wonder that people who purchase Gore-Tex or Sympatex or any other product noted as waterproof and breathable are disappointed!(On 9/1192 I filed a complaint with the FTC about the misleading advertising of these products maybe they are still working on it.)

Manufacturers who allow themselves to accept large advertising budgets from even larger companies for using inferior components in the products they produce will eventually go by the wayside. The ultimate consumer will not be fooled more than once. The retailers may very well lose their customers for making available poor quality products at high prices. All of this will lead to a smaller and smaller market and eventually the death of an industry. (I think that the speed of this process is quite slowas I have learned, but it is happening.)

I am quite sure that what I have written will be read by representatives of the companies or products mentioned. If you think I have misrepresented your product, you are welcome to send me proof to the contrary. (I did not realize that my recent challenge was originally offered by me in 1992, so I am still waiting).

I do believe that the industry has gone downhill since I wrote this article, as a result of companies not producing the quality of products that were produced when I first entered into the industry. Today the industry is populated with young people who have an enormous lack of knowledge.