Wool - your opinion?

there's a reason a top quality blanket costs 150-250$ and that's if you're a skinflint that shops right..

and the italian and swiss military blankets are a STEAL, and i wish i didn't have a boxfull of blankets so I could justify buying a dozen.

this is the guy WITH a dozen down comforters, and covers, MINE all MINE..

so wool ain't the only good stuff at night, but as for clothing? it fits certain body types more'n others. i'm way skinny, and warm at night is relevant.. and not dragging 40 lbs of wet wool through the woods is also relevant. . I have wool socks to wear with knee high boots, a couple pendleton shirts, but don't wear any outer garments made of wool. A wool peacoat once damp weighs about as much as an 8 year old. .

suit yourself. I do.
 
I think wool still has a place outdoors. I have some surplus wool shirts that I love, and I have long underwear by Smartwool, Icebreaker and Ibex. I also wear wool socks almost exclusively. All of the pros and cons have already been mentioned so it comes down to personal preference.
If you are looking for blankets, shirts and pants, military surplus is hard to beat. I prefer merino for underwear and socks.
 
I have a pair of bib overalls that I have been wearing to hunt in for years. For the most part they keep me warm and dry all day long and dry out each evening for the next day. I find that I am able to regulate my temperature a lot better in these than in some of the newer, fancier fabrics out there. I also find them to be quieter, more water resistant than most. Last but not least, they cost a hell of a lot less than half of the Cabela's catalog.
 
>I love my wool stuff, and wool still is in the top level when it comes to socks. (I've tried polyester fleece socks, and I do not like how they feel at all.)

>Wool beats cotton hands down (and newspaper).

>Tradition, tradition, tradition, tradition. (You supply the music.)

>Wool resists sparks and flame better than the real competition - polyester fleece/fill.

>Within limits, wool is hypothermic -- actually generates significant heat when absorbing water. http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache...rbtion+OR+absorption&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=5

>Tradition, tradition, tradition, tradition, tradition. (You supply the music.)

>Wool comes from sheep, and sheep-owners have to live too.


That's it. In all other respects polyester is superior.

Significantly better warmth-to-weight ration compared dry. Incredably superior warmth-to-weight ratio when compared wet

Much better abrasion resistance

Much better strength

Easily washable - doesn't shrink

Cheap (Secondhand stores are full of it 'cause you can't wear it out.)

Far less likely to irritate skin

Hypoallergenic

Holds its shape when wet (See above testimonial to wet wool losing its shape.)

MUCH faster drying

Better to far better moisture management depending on the fabric and/or how many times it has been washed. (1. Some permanently wicking fabrics are out there now. Wash away! 2. Moisture managing coatings on the fibers can be renewed if not permanent.)

Can be made into more wind-resistant fabrics (although "boiled wool" is pretty good)

Which is why polyester has replaced wool in technical applications like high mountain climbing and severe cold expeditions. Survival trumps tradition.

(This is where someone usually volunteers to take my wool stuff off my hands if I don't like it. But I do like it. I just know what to wear backpacking in January around here.)
 
We use a mix of wool and micro fleece with various shells during the winter. I love the nice comfy feeling of a Merino or Cashmere sweater. Always wool socks, even in heat when walking far. I enjoy making a bedroll with one of the surplus wool blankets, It keeps you warm just having it slung across your body:)

Mark
 
The bottom line for me is that we are at some point along a performance fabric revolution, and that term is chosen quite advisedly. While it is true that for years we have made good use of parts we can fleece from animals the times they are a changing. Tweed and waxed cotton has been used here for decades. It's rugged and made a fair job at keeping the shooter warm and dry. In the UK at least, now, tweed and waxed cotton are the preserve of the purist and the rambler, and often are little more than part of the costume at a shoot or equestrian event. Meantime the world has turned, and I would venture to suggest if it wasn't for the pioneering efforts of Malden Mills and W.L. Gore we would not have the outdoor revolution that we do. Sadly, we have yet to come up with anything better than leather [yeah, I know about plastic mountaineering boots ;-)] or down, but I'm sure the man's ingenuity will someday come up with something performing better than those primitives too. I hope it is within my lifetime
 
baldtaco-II said:
. . . Sadly, we have yet to come up with anything better than leather [yeah, I know about plastic mountaineering boots ;-)] or down, but I'm sure the man's ingenuity will someday come up with something performing better than those primitives too. I hope it is within my lifetime
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Isn't polyester fill better than down UNLESS you can insure that you do not perspire and keep outside water out OR unless you are in a place where it is sunny, warm, and dry, allowing the down item to be dried out each day? Without those assurances, I find that down, at best, slowly loses loft with no practical field correction, making polyester more practical and, in a survival situation, safer.

W.L. Gore
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Alas, I find Gore products to be limited. I get lots of condensation. Cold enough and I get ice inside a Gore jacket. Very well made though.

I finally found a Lowe jacket using eVent fabric on ePrey. It is much more breathable, consistent with Verber's findings: http://www.verber.com/mark/outdoors/gear/breathability.pdf Sadly, it is a very impractical white. :cool:

Gore has largely kept the superior competitors like the German eVent out of our market. Example: Gore convinced Lowe to stop using eVent fabrics with monster discounts on the more famous - and far less breathable - Gore products. So Lowe eVent jackets only were offered for one year.

Anyone tried boots with eVent liners? I hear good reports but can't find them on this side of the Big Pond. A truly breathable liner might finally offer a practical alternative to leather.
 
Thomas Linton, hola

I start from the opposite end – Down being better because of loft and the amount of dead air trapped for a given weight and the ability to compress / packed size. However, I see what you are driving at with synthetics being superior under some circumstances. I often use Snugpac bags for precisely that reason – warm when wet and the ability to dry them out. Still, on the whole, that isn't sufficient to sway me that synthetics are superior yet. For a start one can use a vapour barrier bag inside a down bag. I've not tried that, and by all accounts it isn't a particularly pleasant stew in your own juice affair, but it will address the wetting the bag from the inside problem to some extent. As for a pure survival bag I'd go with a Buffalo Pertex and pile [I'm very fond of Buffalo kit – see below], but man are they heavy and bulky. Absolutely not my choice for a bag unless I knew I was going to be curled up in a ditch for sure.

I see what your driving at the the Gore thing, my point was that Gore really got things moving as an inovator, a bit like Dyson.

I think how well Gortex works at dealing with condensation is a great deal to do with the different scrims laminated to the inside. Also, I don't believe it is necessarily the best solution in all instances. For example; I remember reading a great deal on the superiority of Sympatex when inside boots. Something about it being more elastic making it more durable, and it being less fragile when exposed to debris. There are so many products on the market now I wouldn't be at all surprised if several weren't demonstrably better than Gortex in specific applications. For one I'm thinking of the Paramo stuff which is much more breathable than any Gortex. Confounding all this we have the choice of face fabric the Gortex is laminated to. If a face fabric isn't kept conditioned and treated properly so water will bead up and run off it doesn't matter what make membrane is laminated to the inside, it will suffocate from the slick of water on the outside and condensation will build up.

I try to avoid all that stuff by living in Buffalo gear treated with Nikwax when in the sticks. It shrugs off most water pretty quickly leaving me to only reach for the Gortex when it is really raining hard. Better is that it dries out very quickly just with body warmth and fits in nicely with the amphibious flavour I prefer my kit to have. Love it.
 
ah Gore-Tex, "it breathes" it breathes", but even Gore wont admit the only way it breathes is if you open the pit zips and the front zipper.

only good place to wear goretex is on the movie set when your standing around in the rain not moving. Start moving and prepare to get wet!
 
That's very true...I find Gore-tex to wet out fast in rainy environments. In the cold it's generally done pretty well for me - I guess this probably relates to the low humidity of the outside air relative to inside the jacket.

Once the shell is wet, it just stops breathing anyway. I only get stuff with a bunch of zippers on it now, because that's the only way to stay damp (as opposed to soaked.)

There is no such thing as staying dry in coastal BC.
 
Bushman5 said:
ah Gore-Tex, "it breathes" it breathes", but even Gore wont admit the only way it breathes is if you open the pit zips and the front zipper.

only good place to wear goretex is on the movie set when your standing around in the rain not moving. Start moving and prepare to get wet!
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Nah, a good place to wear Gortex is in front of a hydrostatic head whilst standing next to a guy wearing his woolly outfit. Measurements can then be taken as to who got the wettest. Better than any anecdote.
 
baldtaco-II said:
Nah, a good place to wear Gortex is in front of a hydrostatic head whilst standing next to a guy wearing his woolly outfit. Measurements can then be taken as to who got the wettest. Better than any anecdote.
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ah but us Woolies will still be warm! and here in BC it is a rainforest, once your wet, you are cold, once your cold you are on a slippery slope.

I do like Gore for stationary work though, like the odd time i stand on a film set.
 
Hola, BTII. How did you know I was originally from California? :D

Too true about "wetting out." The thermal "push" just can't overcome the film strength of a layer of water. I guess you can get militant about renewing the "durable" [Called that because it is not particularly durable. :rolleyes:] water repellant on the outside.

Laterly, I've been trying a "soft shell" -- under a poncho if the rain gets serious. The soft shell takes care of condensation on the inside of the poncho, and the poncho keeps the real soaking rain off the soft shell. No worries about DWR with a coated nylon poncho, and the new ones are really light. 'Course, if the wind blows or your scrabling up a steep grade . . . . .

Shoeller is good fabric brand for soft shells but, again, more available in Europe. In Verber's testing, Schieller Dryskin Extreme easily bested the US Nextec fabric being used by our military. http://www.verber.com/mark/outdoors/gear/breathability.pdf
The Nextec edge is that it does not need DWR to shed water. The silicon rubber coating takes care of that.

But I still get some condensation inside the soft shell if working hard. Just no perfect solutions.
 
I would say the way to test it would be to get in front of the hydrostatic head, and then ENGAGE IN WHATEVER ACTIVITY YOU'D BE DOING. If your plan is to stand around in the forest, then the goretex will be great compared to the wool. If your plan is to hike in a downpour, you will probably be equally wet, one of you from the water and the other from sweat condensation.

So given that you will both be soaked, what is it better to be wearing?

Answer (for me at least):

A wool sweater, with a down vest and goretex shell in my bag. When the activity level changes, I do too.
 
I think all these responses again affirm for me why I like my semi-amphibious approach to kit and synthetics such as Buffalo. I really don't care about getting wet provided I'm not cold, in fact I expect it. Where the synthetics really come into their own is the ability to keep pumping that water away from me and drying quickly whilst not suffering as much of a weight penalty as other routes. More often than not for me the priority for achieving that is windproof rather than waterproof, whilst remaining light. If I wanted an all in one solution I'd undoubtedly go the Paramo route not Gortex. [I've been out to the Paramo place a bunch of times, it's not far from me. It is impressive to see a jacket riddled with a handful of thumbtacks pinned to a board, that when they were removed is still waterproof. The breathability is great too]. If I did the mountain climbing thing I'm certain of it. Meantime, I think it's going to take a lot to dislodge me from the quick drying and comfortable when wet approach to play. At the moment I just need a waterproof proper in the most vile of weather.
 
Myself and my unit have been using Helly Hanson "Warm" polypro/wool mix long underwear for a couple of years now. It helps keep one dry when really active say a K-9 track and keeps you warm when stationary for a few hours, eg Containment.
I layer with my wool/polyro base, then a polar fleece, and a gortex outer layer and pack an extra sweater. Down filled parkas are on hand if it's really really cold eg North Ontario.

It gets very hot when tracking cold weather even in minus 30C-35C. I often find myself using my Hansen underwear, wool commando sweated and LVB minus the plates but with level 3 panels. ya sweat no matter what, the problem is staying warm after the chase and that is where wool always wins.


Wool is bulky and heavy and is not as effective at resisting the wind as some petrochems, but even when soaking wet, it retains about 80% of it's insulation value.
On our feet, nothing but wool, powder and perhaps a polypro liner period.

To sum up layer up and use both wool and petrochems.

10-7
 
> To sum up layer up and use both wool and petrochems.

well said. I totally agree.

Besides, wool lasts much longer than modern synthetic fabrique.
 
The old US Army wool shirts are a great piece of gear. Best of all, I have regularly found and bought them dirt cheap on ebay. Worth a look.
 
I haven't found any synthetic that will keep me as warm when damp as wool will. I use army boot socks made partially of wool and they can't be beat.

Can't think of any downside to using wool. After millions of years of evolution, I think the sheep have wool technology locked up.
 
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