I recently visited the Yeti down filling factory in Gorlitz Germany. Yeti produce a large range of premium down clothing and sleeping bags, all made and filled in Germany, which is very unusual with the majority of manufacturers making in the Far East.
I took a quick video of the Down Filling machine, how Down garments are filled seems a bit of a dark art, some manufacturers hand fill in a room claiming this is the best option as their staff have hand filled garments for generations and know exactly how much to put in to get the exact weight per baffle, however technology exists the down machine at Yeti acts as a giant weighing scale and controls the volume of down blown into each baffle of a down product, all controlled by computer.
I took a quick video of the Down Filling machine, how Down garments are filled seems a bit of a dark art, some manufacturers hand fill in a room claiming this is the best option as their staff have hand filled garments for generations and know exactly how much to put in to get the exact weight per baffle, however technology exists the down machine at Yeti acts as a giant weighing scale and controls the volume of down blown into each baffle of a down product, all controlled by computer.
The down is delivered in massive bags, each being a seperate quality.
The down Filling machines chamber weighs and calculates the amount of down to push into the sleeping bags baffle.
The machine than calculates the amount of down and blows in into the baffles like a reverse vacum cleaner filling each baffle individually, as each baffle is filled the baffle is stitched closed, the contruction is carefully designed so that you can close the baffles as the garment is filled and closed off.
www.yetiworld.com
www.yetiworld.com
What does it look like ? There are many different qualities of down, all the down Yeti uses is Polish Goose, that is responsibly sourced, they also use some of the worlds highest qualities, this is Crystal down, EN900 73/7 Cuin, the best you can get anywhere.... The price weight for weight is the equivalent to Gold.