buoyant

LAMILITE IS BUOYANT

Many years ago, I was doing lots of work with the US Navy Natick labs developing mittens for use on submarines that are still used today. Every year or so I get an order for more of them.

At that time the engineer I was working with liked the Lamilite for several reasons, one being it was buoyant.

One day he called and asked about buying an Antarctic parka and bib to test if a seaman was wearing the outfit would float. He did!

The problem was that a seaman going top side on the sub would not be wearing an arctic outfit. That ended the project, but I made a sale.

The reason I thought about this was because of an email from a customer asking if a sleeping bag made with Lamilite in a stuff sack would float which I knew it would. I have told many kayakers that their Wiggy bag in their stuff sack would float if it came loose from the craft. He also wanted to know if the bag would float out of the stuff sack. The answer is yes.

I then thought that the Ultima Thule or Antarctic bag with the layers of 15 ounce or L-15 Lamilite is buoyant enough to hold a 200-pound man. When I had the swimming pool, I tested my emersion survival flotation suit. I never tested the buoyancy of the sleeping bag with me on it.

Since the flotation suit was made with L-6 Lamilite as well as the flotation foam I am confident the 3 layers of L-15 Lamilite would be even more buoyant. If you could get in the bag so you have 2 layers on top you would probably float forever. Of course, you might drown. You would need to keep your face out of the water.

I suppose you could pull in the hood draw cord to keep water out of the hood section, so you have a small air hole.

The point is Lamilite does have flotation qualities. I know the Antarctic bag is a little much to have on a boat but in a survival situation it could save your life.

My customer wrote to me yesterday saying he was going to get an Antarctic bag and test it in Alaska. If he does all of this, I expect he will offer his results.

One more interesting attribute about Lamilite.

The other day a friend was in my office, and he commented that I have a love affair with my sleeping bags. I had to correct him and say the love affair is with Lamilite. And I sell insulation called Lamilite.

Historically when I devised the concept of laminating the continuous filament fiber to make it easier to work with, I showed it to one of my 10 bosses. The company I worked at was owned by the owners of 5 other companies each with 2 partners. One made fiberfill, and one was a laminating company. The others I had nothing to do with.

Once I knew the continuous filament fiberfill [CFF]could be laminated, I went to one boss and told him we needed a new laminating machine to laminate this material since our present machine wasn’t very good. He said no. Ultimately all companies associated with the making of CFF and all the companies that could use it rejected me.

So, I got on my boat and sailed to the Bahamas. When I returned, I got into the manufacturing of sleeping bag business, Olam. I then opened a factory to laminate the CFF, but I had to build the laminating machine to do it, so I did in 1977, and it is in use today.

The problem I had was that the existing companies that made sleeping bags here wouldn’t by my baby [product] all I wanted to do was sell the Lamilite to manufacturers.

I will say I did sell the Lamilite to all the ski mitten manufactures for 5 years until they all went out of country. That said it takes more material to make a sleeping bag than a pair of mittens, but I had no success.

The result for me was to become the end item producer.

The guys in the industry knew about down and knew they had to make a synthetic bag but had no knowledge of synthetics and chose to keep it that way.

So, during the past 40 years while they still never learned anything about synthetics and their down bag sales stagnated, I entered the marketplace and have become the largest producer of sleeping bags in the world because the ultimate consumer is smarter than those who offer “no sleep sleeping bags” because those consumers are buying my sleeping bags.

The consumers have over these years learned about Lamilite and how good an insulation it is.

After all was said to Don that morning about love affairs it is with Lamilite CFF. All I ever wanted to do was sell it, which is what I do and have done only as the finished product producer.

I do have to offer thanks to my partner Roger at Olam for teaching me manufacturing.