why cff is and always will be best

WHY CONTINUOUS FILAMENT FIBERFILL [CFF] WILL ALWAYS BE THE BEST INSULATING MATERIAL IN THE WORLD

I have been in the business of selling synthetic fiberfill for use in general outerwear and skiwear since 1961 when all we had were chopped staple fiberfill products. Then in 1968 the continuous filament fiberfill product was introduced to these manufacturers and it was trade named Polar Guard. I was fortunate enough to work as the sales director of the company that made it. Very quickly I believed it was the best insulating material made. Over the 6 decades that I have worked in the outdoor industry as a salesman of fiberfill to manufacturers and then as a manufacturer myself I have learned that CFF is unquestionably the most efficient material in the world for use as an insulation for use in sleeping bags, outerwear, handwear, headwear and footwear.

Believe it or not much of my education about the CFF in use has come from those who have purchased my products. I learned that structurally when the CFF was and is still made into a batting it was not only stronger than all other products made for the same purpose but significantly more durable. I further learned that as a form of insulation it was significantly more efficient. [Much of this information came from my customers, the users of my sleeping bags primarily versus my other products as well].

I learned how well the CFF now called Lamilite allowed the moisture from the sleeping bag occupant to vacate the sleeping bag through the CFF and nylon shell. I further have learned that the wet bags would be dried from the heat generated by the user of a wet bag. The reason for this to occur will be discussed further in the article.

The most important knowledge that I have learned about the CFF is why it performs as well as it does as an insulator that ultimately causes it to dry out a person and a sleeping bag when both are wet.

I have written in the past that air right next to any surface tends to stick to that surface. This effect extends about 1/8^th inch out for all practical purposes. This is very important information to know because it makes a difference between CFF and all other materials claimed to be insulation.

Chopped staple polyester fiberfill is formed into a web on machinery that separates the fibers as much as possible to make it as lofty a batting as possible and the machinery has a limit to how lofty they can make a product. It is then spray bonded or low melt bonded to hold it together. The air in the fiber which is stuck to the fiber warms from the body of the person wearing the garment but that heat heating the fiber which heats the air in the garment is greater than the density of the fiber so the heat is lost very quickly. Heated air moves and if it has nothing to attach to it just keeps moving towards colder air. In physics heat moves to cold.

The chopped staple fiberfill is of a very weak structure so it has to be quilted to be kept in place. The method by which it is constructed with quilt stitches allows the heat to exit the garment through the stitch holes. For the past several years I have seen and even these days see people wearing quilted jackets that have very small quilt patterns such as one inch squares. There is very little room for much fiberfill and it is compressed very quickly when worn. This results in almost no air in the fiberfill to attach to, to have insulation.

It is very important to know and understand that air in a stagnant situation is the insulation. The fiberfill that has air attached to it is providing a place for the air to stay. It is the spaces between the fibers that are attached to the air is where the air stays. It does not move away; it is stuck there. When you are in a sleeping bag for example [ I use the sleeping bag versus a parka since you are in a still situation whereas in a parka you are moving which creates heat] you are just lying still. Your body is heating the air around you and that heated air is moving up above you. the heated air is now heating the nylon fabric above you. It is heated and in turn the nylon fabric heats the fiber used as insulation on the top of the bag as well as air. Here the difference between the chopped staple fiberfill’s and CFF differ significantly.

The chopped staple fiberfill’s as I have stated are structured in a manner that keeps them apart when used in jackets but when used in sleeping bags, they are intertwined so dense that there is for the most part little or no air between the fibers. Yes, there is air stuck to the outer layer of the fiber ball and some internally but very little. When this air is heated it moves to the shell fabric where it moves out into the atmosphere. The process of conductive heat lose is very rapid. Hence the occupants of these sleeping bags or should I say no sleep sleeping bags wake up because they are cold.

The more often these bags are stuffed the more compacted the fiberfill becomes so the more often they are used the more often the user gets cold.

This is a fact of life that I can attest to when I bought a chopped staple fiberfill bag that I used when I was a Reservist. Only during the summer was I warm. I was not in the sleeping bag business nor did CFF exist, I used what was available.

When the CFF is formed into a batting there are 200,000 filaments that have been separated and laid on a conveyor moving at a predetermined speed based upon the weight of thickness desired. If you go to the Wiggy’s web site and go to the u tube videos and look at the “Wiggy’s Insulation” videos there are two of them you will see a cross section of the L-15 Lamilite. What exists in those fibers is an unknown quantity of air that is stuck to the fibers.

The air stuck in the fibers may be there from the time the fiber was configured into a batting at the Climashield manufacturing plant. As the fibers all 200,000 filaments of them are laid down they have air attached to them, air they never lose.

At this point I want to make you aware of the simple fact that air is touching everything and is therefore attached to everything. It is attached to the sides of cracks in rocks. Air is everywhere and it is stuck to everything.

Back to CFF, when you view the videos, you are looking at a cross section of the L-15 which is about 8 layers of 200,000 filaments of fiber. And when I make a superlight, I once calculated there are over 8 million filaments in the bags. There is air attached to each and every filament at the Climashield plant and when they ship it to me, they have mildly vacuum packed the rolls for shipping which you can see towards the end of the first video I made “Tour of the Factory.” You will also see how quickly they expand back to their original size before they pack them for shipping.

When we put the rolls through our laminating process, we do not cause the air stuck to the fibers from the Climashield factory to leave the fibers, maybe more of the air gets into the fibers while we work with it. Once the components are individually perimeter sewn the air is further locked into the fiber between the nylon on one side and the scrim on the other.

As we manufacture each sleeping bag, we are mildly manhandling the parts turning them from side to side and eventually right side out since they are sewn together inside out. With all of this activity the air that is trapped inside the Lamilite Climashield is mostly what was stuck to the filaments at the Climashield plant, and some in addition from the Wiggy’s plant.

When we ship sleeping bags to customers, we compress them in poly bags to fit in smaller boxes. When the customers receive them and breaks them out of the poly bag, they experience an immediate lofting of the bag. the fiber is expanding with the help of the air, the air that has been stuck to the fiber and hasn’t left the interior of the bag in our compressing process.

When you get into a Wiggy’s bag your body heat is contained for the most part in the Lamilite Climashield insulation, the air that is stuck to the fibers heats the fibers that heat the air and the heat coming from your body is what is also heating the air as well and it does not leave the inside of the sleeping bag very quickly. The heated air is stuck to the fibers between the shell and lining of the bag. As you move around in your Wiggy’s while sleeping the heated air [insulation] is always surrounding you and you therefore are not reheating new areas of the interior of the bag.

Just ask anyone with a Wiggy’s bag why they are reluctant to get out of it in the morning, because they are warm. The heated air has stayed in the fibers because it is attached to the fibers and for this reason you stay warm. So long as you are in the sleeping bag your body heat will keep the fibers and air warm. Also, heat movement through the bag and out is minimized because the need to draw more heat from your body is minimized. Because the heat being drawn from your body is so slow the heat leaving the bag is equally slow. The rate of conductive heat lose is minimal.

An additional benefit to you is the rate of food metabolism that takes place. If you were losing heat quickly your metabolic rate increases to keep you warm. When you consume all of your food you begin to get cold. This is the reason people who use other supposed sleeping bags wake up and do not sleep, “they are in no sleep sleeping bags”.

With a Wiggy’s bag your metabolic rate is at its slowest level which means when you fall asleep you stay asleep. This is the additional benefit of a Wiggy’s bag.

The action I have just described does not happen with any other form of material used as an insulation in sleeping bags or clothing.

You now know that air in insulation so long as you can break it up into very small sections. I say sections because if you revisit the structure of the continuous filament fiberfill you will note that all of the sections of the Wiggy’s bags contain air within the sections that comprise the sleeping bag.

When you examine all of the chopped staple fiberfill products used for insulation you observe that the fibers are spaced apart except when it is used for sleeping bags, in that case they clumped together not allowing for air to touch many fibers. As for down, the down does trap air but the down never gets to the temperature of the nylon lining so it continually absorbs the heat. In addition, the down also absorbs your moisture so the moisture also absorbs heat.

There is also a product I have written about recently called aerogel that is in development by northeastern university to the tune of 10 million of our dollars for the next 3 years that has no chance of working as an insulation. I have seen the aerogel material and it cannot reproduce CFF. If the truth be known there is no material known to mankind at this moment and I believe there will never be a product to replace LAMILITE CLIMASHIELD CONTINUOUS FILAMENT FIBER.