continued education of the non-functioning insulations!!!

Faux Feathers Are Better

How PrimaLoft Manufactured a Down-Mimicking Miracle Fiber

The article does not speak of a miracle fiber, but just another polyester fiber that is excellent for summer insulated jackets!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sports and Outdoors By Tanner Bowden

You take your synthetic puffy coat for granted. It’s filled with warm, water-resistant, bird-friendly compressible fibers, but you want it to be warmer, lighter and pack down smaller. It’s okay though, no one would blame you — certainly not Vanessa Mason, the director of engineering at PrimaLoft. She spends her days toiling behind a desk, managing a full staff of engineers and traveling to production facilities overseas because she feels exactly the same way — she wishes her synthetic jacket performed at a higher level. “If I worked twenty-four hours a day,” she says, “I probably still wouldn’t get my job done.”

Of course she “wishes” because to date Primaloft has yet to get made since they do not make any products themselves a product that works, period as insulation. The fact that she spends her days at a desk means she has no background in the field of insulation. If she wants a synthetic jacket that works she should spend a few dollars and buy a Wiggy’s jacket and her “wish” would come true.

Mason started with PrimaLoft back in 2000 and it’s been through her team’s work that insulation technology has made some great strides. The Latham, New York–based company just released its latest innovation, ThermoPlume. According to Mason, ThermoPlume is essentially “small, silky chunks of fiber plumes shaped like sails.” It has the ability to flow freely, like down feathers, which have long been considered the gold standard when it comes to insulation. But synthetic is catching up, and ThermoPlume is a sure sign of it.

I do not know who this woman is but  I do know her knowledge of insulations is in the volume of zero! She must have gotten her education from the same chimpanzee as the Eric fellow advising ThermaRest!  

The Primaloft Company has made absolutely zero strides in the field of synthetic insulations. They have dreamt up a number of names for the same product that did not work in the first place when it was created in the mid 1980’s. If the new fiber is shaped like sails, that is a ploy in language to suggest that it moves freely like down. I suspect the fibers are flat (sail shaped (?)) versus cylindrical like all the rest of the polyester fiberfill's that are made of, including Lamilite/Climashield. I always wonder why they say that down is the gold standard of insulations when the continuous filament fiber has always out performed down since its inception for use as insulation. That being Lamilite/Climashield which is not catching up but is so far ahead of down or anything else; an analogy is trying to catch a 2017 Porsche with a 1959 Volkswagen which was my first car, can’t be done.

Q:

What problem does ThermoPlume solve?

A:

As long as I’ve been around at PrimaLoft, brands have been asking us for a 100 percent all-synthetic blowable structure. They were looking for the extended comfort that a synthetic product provides in a much wider range of climates or environments. They were looking for an all-synthetic product that will give you that puffy look and feel of down. And they also wanted a product that didn’t require a new or difficult-to-install garment manufacturing process.

ThermoPlume solves no problem since blowable polyester fiber has existed long before Primaloft was ever made. Unless you consider that Primaloft needs to get back sales that they are losing to the other bogus chopped staple fiberfills being offered to the brands (?) this article refers too.

Q:

Why should people care about blowable synthetic insulation?

A:

The consumer is going to get the aesthetic hand feel and lightweight warmth that’s typical to a down jacket, but they’re going to get the extended performance characteristics of synthetic — like breathability, warm-when-wet, and high compressibility. So you’re getting the look and feel of down, but the performance of synthetic. The brands benefit, too, from a manufacturing standpoint. The fact that it can be blown through traditional down processing equipment is ideal for them — it allows a simple manufacturing process and it gives those brands and designers the freedom to design garments that’ll look and feel like down. Synthetic fill also allows brands to offer their consumers products free from violating animal rights.

I believe the consumer that buys a jacket with this stuff in it will get the “light weight warmth that is for tropical” use (Key West). Big deal that it feels like down, 100 percent of all unbonded polyester fiber feels like down. what ever happened to their polyester fiber down blend product? So much for violating animal rights. Sounds like hypocrisy to me.

Montane’s Icarus jacket will be the first to feature Primaloft’s ThermoPlume insulation.

Q:

Why did it take so long to develop something like this? What was the biggest challenge?

A:

We had attempted many times to make a blowable structure, but we were focusing too much on materials development and not so much on the structure. That was really the lag in development. Synthetic fibers are not really distinct or individual, but down clusters are, which allows them to flow freely. We were really focusing on the molecular weight of the synthetic versus the down, and not so much the structure.

But as soon as we came across equipment we could manipulate so that we could get individualized synthetic structures, that’s where we made the advancement. Synthetic fibers, in general, tend to want to stick together and hang out, so you get bunching. We found the mechanism to separate and individualize different fiber structures so that they could flow more freely, like a down product.

The equipment needed to separate fibers has been in use for maybe 100 years which started with separating cotton fibers. The same equipment was then used for separating polyester fibers. Note that earlier in the article she says these fibers are in “chunks”, is that different than “bunching”.

Q:

What does fiber development look like? Are scientists tinkering with molecules in a lab?

A:

The development in the early years was focused around changing the material structure of the fiber from polyester to something else. The latter part was focusing in on changing the equipment. We had a lot of success at the factory level. When we’re inside of a production factory, the type of machinery we’re working on is what we call pilot-scale equipment — it wasn’t large scale. We could quickly change the parts inside the equipment, the different dimensions of the equipment, and we could change builds to run at different speeds. The majority of the development work that led to the success of ThermoPlume was inside of a factory, and it was two engineers and two maintenance technicians.

The above paragraph in my opinion is meaningless gibberish!!!!!!!!!!!

Q:

What does the perfect insulation fiber look like?

A:

I challenge our engineers all the time to think about what apparel might look like 25 or even 100 years from now. I can tell you, right now, the most perfect fiber to use in insulation is the PrimaLoft fiber. We talk a lot about product vitality. The most perfect fibers you’ll see selling in 50 years’ time haven’t even been developed yet and probably won’t be developed for another 20 to 25 years. The fibers and materials we’re working with today won’t be used in the future.

The perfect insulating material does exist and 25 years from now even 100 years from now will still be Lamilite/Climashield. There is nothing available today that challenges that fact, and based upon my knowledge that I acquired over the past 57 years of working with polyester fiber for insulation purposes and not at a desk, continuous filament fiber will still be head and shoulders above every other product that companies like Primaloft can conjure.

Note that each time I find an article about one of these bogus products they always compare the product to other chopped staple fiberfill products or down. They never claim that they have a product that is better than Lamilite/Climashield, do they? The reason they do not make any mention is because they know that they do not have a product that is even remotely comparable, actually their products are obsolete just like down and made so by the fact that Lamilite/Climashield exists. That is why they concentrate on the warm weather insulation for Key West use.

ThermoPlume will be available in products beginning in Fall 2017.

don't be hoodwinked if you see the jackets with this garbage!!!!!!!!!!!!!