[00:00:00] Joe: Welcome everyone to the Live Ultralight podcast, powered by Outdoor Vitals. I am Joe and I'm sitting here with Brigham our lead designer of our products here at Outdoor Vitals. And I decided to bring Brigham on to talk about what goes in. To your backpacking gear. Now, I am not an expert backpack. I probably the least Packer Savvy in the office. I like backpacking. But I was hired as an Entertainer so, I
[00:00:41] Joe: decided I need to learn this. You guys might need to you. You guys might be interested in this specially if you're hardcore Backpacker. And you want to know more about What you're buying when you're getting backpacking gear and we're going to get into the Nitty Gritty, literally as Nitty Gritty, as you can get on this episode of the podcast where we're going to be talking about. Textiles. And fibers.
[00:01:11] Joe: Are you ready Brigham? I suppose so okay.
[00:01:15] Joe: Well what is? What is a textile? What does that have to do with backpacking? Backpacking gear.
[00:01:23] Brigham: Well. First of all, backpacking gear for the most part is made of textiles. What is the textile? Textile is like a flat arrangement of fibers. To create like a malleable usable material. But the term textile is very broad. Like carpet is a textile. Carbon fiber, you know what, people generally, think of carbon fiber, that's a textile. Some kinds of. Yeah, there's all like textiles, very Broad and it's a generally, like, the
[00:02:08] Brigham: less refined stage of what ends up being a fabric or a less usable or final product.
[00:02:17] Joe: Now here's a question for you. So I'm looking at wood panels behind us would, is there wood fibers that doesn't count?
[00:02:24] Brigham: The wood paneling behind us. Would not be a text
[00:02:27] Joe: would not be a textile. So what differentiates that between?
[00:02:30] Brigham: It's it's not like a man-made arrangement of fibers to create a flat. Like drapel. Type surface, right? Or what did I put in your training? yeah, I mean it's there's some form of like interlacing and arranging fibers in a certain way, okay? So it's man-made of some kind.
[00:03:05] Joe: Is that important in textile or yeah? Yeah, a textiles.
[00:03:08] Joe: Can't just be a leaf.
[00:03:09] Brigham: Yeah, I know it's a manufacturer got arrangement of fibers, you know, as like a fiber is a raw product but yeah, to, to make flat. Like think of something like a sheet. like, She does, you know, made a fabric, but the same like the visualize that right. so again, you know, carpet, Sheets like tarps, those are, those are made of textiles but the textile is just it's just a more broad term
[00:03:51] Brigham: for like a wide variety of things. And then when you Further Focus. The application of a textile for certain purposes then it generally becomes more of a fabric. Classification. Okay. All right.
[00:04:09] Joe: So I got here flat arrangement of interlaced fibers. Generally a more broad unfinished product. That's what you wrote down on our. This is actually we're working off of our work training. We had a we had a meeting about this. What was that two months ago? Two,
[00:04:26] Brigham: three months ago, it was a while ago.
[00:04:27] Joe: Yeah, um, and never saw you more excited in my in my life than when you were talking about fabrics and and textiles and Yarns. So
[00:04:39] Brigham: yeah. Shows referring to. We we started doing a monthly what? I call team product training meetings, where basically I just kind of give little seminars to the rest of the team who's job isn't the same as mine. So they're not, you know, they can't be expected to be familiar with a lot of the terminology that I use and the things that I do with my job. So it helps keep like everybody
[00:05:06] Brigham: else in the company like informed or aware of some of the things so that they can you know communicate like intelligently with with our customers or with industry. And
[00:05:18] Joe: yeah, they're asking about materials specifically. Yeah. So when it comes to this kind of product training and that seems to be something that's I
[00:05:27] Joe: I Occasionally, they do get those types of very nitty-gritty questions in the product support team.
[00:05:34] Joe: Do they always have to go to you to? They always have to refer to you. Is that way?
[00:05:38] Brigham: I mean, right? I don't know if I know the questions. I don't know if they always go to me, but yeah.
[00:05:46] Joe: All right. Well, you guys are gonna have to forgive me while I open up a diet soda here. Um, so, Fabric. What is a fabric? In comparison to a textile.
[00:05:58] Brigham: It is more of an end product. used to, as As a material. Think of that, in terms of building materials, right? If you have a house, like the drywall sheetrock. That's, that's a material used for building a wall, right? Carpet. That's a material. She rock is not a textile carpet is a textile. But fabric. Is. the more refined usable product to build, Another finished product.
[00:06:37] Joe: Okay. and, So what is a yarn? It compares to do a fabric. I'm looking at it. We're going. Oh, you're going through our notes because if you ever say if you ever say okay it's made out of their, this stopped nylon with this kind of weaving pattern or whatever you want people to know what you're talking about. I mean, because it does, it's certainly helpful. there is a little bit of a
[00:07:05] Joe: bit, there's there is a bit of a trick with advertising where you just like Say what it actually is, we know you're an expert on this stuff, Jason's an expert on this stuff. As far as I know, and so when we have that in our advertising or something like that, all it does is give you like kind of an air of like Whoever's putting, I'm not saying our company but any company
[00:07:29] Joe: that's putting out information about their product and what it's made out of and going like, well this is made out of making up a number D12, rip, stop nylon.
[00:07:41] Brigham: that's a good fabrication
[00:07:42] Joe: and and so, but if you're the customer, you know, Maybe you want to know what that means. So we gotta know what these terms all mean. So what I would have assumed before I did this training that a yarn was a type of fabric, okay?
[00:08:01] Brigham: okay, well, Yeah, and again like this is part of the reason why you know, I started wanting to do these team product trainings. you know was for what you just described so that that people have a general base of knowledge that as I kind of describe to our team that's that's probably like one to two steps. Deeper than than we anticipate, our customers would have. Right? So we
[00:08:34] Brigham: should be able to, to communicate with, with customers or potential, you know, potential buyers be able to communicate about our products and intelligently and to you know a level that's You know, one to two. Steps. More in depth than then the customer. So but also I also think it's important that I understand, you know, in marketing, like we can't we can't give like, Really in-depth technical information because frankly a lot of
[00:09:12] Brigham: it it would be pointless anyway. Like it just You know, the the net effect isn't positive, you know? but if we are going to communicate, Certain things about our products then it needs to be accurate. Yeah. So whether it's really basic level or you know more in depth wherever that level is like I just want to make sure the we can communicate it accurately and correctly. And so, that's another kind of
[00:09:44] Brigham: reason why we're having this conversation and just a podcast is a
[00:09:49] Joe: long form thing. And people want to listen to this, they can listen to it. If they don't, if they want to go on to interviews or whatever, having the next couple weeks, I can wait for it. Yeah.
[00:09:57] Joe: What is a yarn
[00:09:58] Brigham: so back to, what is a yarn? so, a yarn is, It's a long right? Think of it, trying to think in terms of like, what people can relate to think of it as like a string, right? Think of like your your, you know, your your grandmother or somebody that loves to sit down and and knit, you know, a homemade. Parameters.
[00:10:28] Joe: We're coordinating you know like
[00:10:29] Brigham: I think that's probably the most generic like reference people will think of if they think of yarn, right. Yeah.
[00:10:38] Brigham: And And that is that stuff is called yarn. But it's important to make the distinction that that yarn is what makes fabric. And then we'll go, we'll go one step. Earlier than that too. But so to answer your question yarn think of it as like really, really, you know, skinn Hair like structures that are very very long that are used to weave fabric. Sew fabric is made out of Yarns people again.
[00:11:17] Brigham: This is another reason why we wanted to to do this team product training, you know, within our team is because I was noticing like some people use incorrect terminology and going back to making sure that we are all on the same page and everybody is communicating correctly and accurately.
[00:11:34] Brigham: One of the common things that I hear, you know, certain people in the office, mix up is thread and yarn and, you know, things being made up of threads or yards or and it's and it's okay, but again, I want to make sure that The correct information, they're correct terminology is used consistently. So that within our company, it's consistent and and for the audience listening, that it's consistent because there may be
[00:12:07] Brigham: people out there that actually do know the difference between thread and yarn and fiber, you know? And so You know, people people like to do their research too. So We don't want to come across and make what we think is, you know. Unimportant distinction or we incorrectly say something so you'll be
[00:12:31] Joe: flipping with it, right? Yeah,
[00:12:32] Brigham: exactly. And because that's just leaves to like inadvertent misinformation, right? Yeah.
[00:12:39] Joe: So I have on here fibers, make Yarns and threads. Yarn makes fabric thread.
[00:12:49] Joe: Which we haven't even gone into you
[00:12:51] Joe: thread is used to sew fabric to get together. Yes. So
[00:12:55] Joe: is Right. A type of yarn
[00:12:57] Brigham: or so thread thread is made of fibers
[00:13:00] Joe: thread is made of fibers. Yes. But
[00:13:03] Joe: thread is thread defined by what it does.
[00:13:07] Brigham: Generally yes. Okay yeah. So so I Think I've tried to make those three sentences. Pretty simple and clear like in terms of what we want people to understand and so at least if we're having a conversation in another podcast about something and somebody mentions fibers or so many mentions threads or Yarns that everybody's on the same page. So so Fibers. Make Yarns. Which make Fabrics. Fibers also make thread which sews fabric
[00:13:42] Brigham: together. And there's all different classes. There's many different classifications with all three of those. Categories.
[00:13:51] Joe: So I have on here, we got We got categorization of different types of fabrics. and so, because it's a fabric, it's Made of different types of yarn, right? So that could be multiple different kinds of yarn or a single kind of yarn I'm guessing.
[00:14:11] Brigham: Yeah, that's True. Okay, good. You could use
[00:14:14] Brigham: different Different thicknesses of yards, you could use different composition of yarn.
[00:14:20] Joe: So let's say I have a shirt and it's 20% polyester and 80% cotton. Okay?
[00:14:27] Joe: So the con and the polyester those are fibers and Yarns.
[00:14:33] Brigham: Yep, that are then.
[00:14:36] Joe: What are they threaded together?
[00:14:39] Brigham: Yeah, they're either either you mentioned a t-shirt that's most likely going to be a knit t-shirt. So we don't want to get too far ahead. So So, you were talking about classification, or categories or categorization? You know, and with the example of a t-shirt, that's 20% polyester 80% cotton. There's a lot of variability in what that? Actually can look like and what that can mean they can use like completely separated. 100%
[00:15:13] Brigham: polyester yards, 100% polyester or 100% cotton Yarns, and just use different ratios, the 20% versus the 80% and knit that together, Also. Make Yarns. Single yarn can be made of cotton and polyester, or film in the blank. Oh
[00:15:34] Brigham: Kevlar, and polyester or nylon and Lyle, you know, so an individual yarn can have a breakdown of composition as well, so it gets it gets microscopic and it and then from there gets molecular so Yeah,
[00:15:56] Joe: can I ask you when you buy clothing? Yeah.
[00:15:59] Joe: Just at a show. Just at a store you know just to buy something off the shelf. Yeah.
[00:16:03] Joe: Do you ever like look really closely at the fibers? You get your glasses out and Try to figure out how they how they knit the T-shirt together. Like, do you know, if it'll shrink in the wash? I'm just wondering if,
[00:16:15] Brigham: you know, I mean, I don't really buy stuff at stores any way much anymore, but I also your clothing get supplied by Outdoor Vitals. I mean, more and more. and yeah, and most of it's like Yeah. So But,
[00:16:35] Brigham: no, I don't, I don't get out the, the little magnifying glass and inspect things. I, I can generally tell by how something feels and then obviously, if you just look at the tag and look at the composition and if you have a base in all knowledge and you can kind of extrapolate and make some make a lot of accurate assumptions about what something. Is made over how it's made.
[00:17:01] Joe: So, we have on here on different categorizations of fabrics, are these. The only categorizations of fabrics? It's a three you have listed here, you have woven non-woven and nits.
[00:17:14] Joe: General General categories, categorizations and
[00:17:17] Brigham: I'll definitely put out the the caveat slash disclaimer that this is definitely not all-inclusive or end-all be-all and I am certainly Not the encyclopedia textile science. PhD candidate, right, you know, but yeah, so in in Fabrics generally you have woven fabrics, you have knit fabrics and then there's a classification that's very also very common of nonwoven fabrics and With, with wovens and Knits. There's a very deliberate. Interlacing of Yarns. It's by
[00:18:06] Brigham: deliberate. I mean. The arrangement of how. That's a range is very particular and it's engineered and it's it's designed right? Like it is just as designed as like you know the skyscraper building like every the placement of every bolt in the skyscraper is deliberate. Just like in a woven or knit like that's all deliberate. There's some general. Structural patterns that are pretty common amongst. Basic wovens and basic nits. Now, a non-woven,
[00:18:39] Brigham: it's not necessarily very Patterned or deliberate, it's almost like a smattering or just like a bunch of bunch of Yarns laid out and, however, the end up interlacing, that's how it ends up
[00:18:57] Joe: like a piece of paper, like where they Crush would.
[00:19:00] Brigham: Yeah, kind of kind of like that and if like I mean in our audience like Tyvek is a very common common talked about Fabric or textile that's used. Tyvek is oftentimes used in building construction for the the walls you've seen them put up that white paper. Looks like paper before they'll like put the brick or before they'll Buckle the outside of a building or something and put up siding. That's Ty back.
[00:19:27] Brigham: That's a non-woven. Textile. And but like, in backpacking, a lot of people will cut it up and use it as a footprint underneath their tent because it's very durable. It's waterproof. But that's not, that's a non-woven. Non-woven textile. Okay. Um
[00:19:45] Joe: you do have a couple examples written on a non or ripstop nylon. What is ripstop nylon.
[00:19:51] Brigham: So ripstop nylon is a very basic woven fabric, okay?
[00:19:54] Brigham: There's there's different weeds like
[00:19:57] Brigham: in woven fabric, there's different weave patterns that you've heard of like twill like your twill jeans or your twill khakis like twill is a type of weave. Plain weave is like the most basic weave and that's what most ripstop nylon is. It's just a plain weave, it's one to one, it's one yard going, you know, perpendicular to another and then over and under over and under, you know, at 90 degree angles.
[00:20:24] Brigham: So like a basket, Well, a basket is a technically a name of another week. but, Anyway, yeah, we'll get it. I think we'll get
[00:20:35] Joe: more into that later ripstop and I Oxford nylon. What is that?
[00:20:42] Brigham: Oxford is usually just like a plain weave. But the 12 and then like Knits. You know, there's different knits as well. Warp knit weft, knit interlock. And you know, there's you can kind of create different textures with various knit patterns like rib knit, you can create different functions, like rib knit, collar of your T-shirt, that's rib knit. If you look kind of see how it's got those vertical orientated. Ribs. And
[00:21:15] Brigham: if you Pull on the vertical orientation. Nothing really happens. But if you pull this way on Your Collar you'll see that that rib like an accordion kind of spreads out. Yeah
[00:21:24] Brigham: built-in stretch of the rib knit. So what? Okay. So I
[00:21:30] Joe: have on here Dragon Ball as an example, and our Dragon will what? What the type of weave that you guys have for that? The type of Fabrics and fibers that go into our product, the Dragon Ball. Why choose those? Why make those decisions, you know? Trying to get into it. So what is Dragon Ball made out of first of all Dragon
[00:21:59] Brigham: Ball is made out of Merino wool polyester and nylon, okay?
[00:22:05] Brigham: And Dragon Ball is Pretty engineered knit fabric where the knit on the inner face is different than the outer face. so, it's Without without it being two separate knit Fabrics, bonded together. So which is, you know, it's why the fabric itself is more expensive, it takes a lot of more engineering, a lot more. calibration of the knitting machines and So like the inside is a more is a is a tighter knit.
[00:22:42] Brigham: That's Merino wool like with some nylon. In the in the yarn and that is, you know, Marina will next to skins. Really soft uses very low, Micron wolf fiber and then, On the outside. Well so on the inside of Dragon Ball, it's it looks like a very pretty common just like warp knit. Fabric surface, right, but on the outer surface of the dragon wall. It's Mostly polyester and it's a jersey knit,
[00:23:22] Brigham: which jersey knit think of like soccer jersey or a basketball jersey. It's kind of got these little like, sort of diamond shaped Um, not holes, but like there's definitely a lot of Aces,
[00:23:37] Joe: so a lot of air going through it, you know? Yeah.
[00:23:40] Brigham: So if you kind of look at a jersey knit, It generally looks like it's got a bunch of little cavities in the surface or something like that. I don't know what the good word to call that
[00:23:51] Joe: specifically. This is an audio media. Yeah. And you definitely need some visual aids for these but weaving patterns, but
[00:23:57] Brigham: yeah. So that's that's a jersey knit. And and that you can create functionality of a garment by engineering how the fabric is knit or woven. So like, for example, with dragonwall, we want a very high contact soft surface against the skin to pull moisture. Absorb moisture and pass the moisture through to the outer surface of the Garment. So Merino, it's a hydrophilic fibre. So it's going to absorb, in fact it actually
[00:24:31] Brigham: absorbs and transfers Vapor before it turns to a liquid moisture and then does the same thing with liquid. Absorbs that spreads it out and which helps it pass through the Garment which is what you want. So it gets the moisture off your skin. When it hits the polyester outer, which is a very, maybe poorest is a good word. Like if you look at the surface of jersey knit, its porous so that
[00:24:58] Brigham: facilitates the like the expulsion or the transpiration of the vapor and the and the moisture as it passes through the Garment because it's a very open structure of the fabric, right? And then also being being polyester, polyester is hydrophobic it doesn't want to hold on to water. It is it does not. Tend to hold on to moisture. So once it hits the polyester, it starts to evaporate much quicker. So there's a
[00:25:27] Brigham: good example of functionality built into the Yarns that the fabric is made out of and then the knit structure. That creates functionality and then there's other functionality of a knit because the way knits are their, their Loops that it's like interlacing Loops. It's a bunch of loops and so inherently, there's stretch Into a fabric that's knit because those those Yarns have room to shift or expand out. Which also AIDS, and breathability.
[00:26:01] Brigham: So, That kind of went off on a tangent there about about nits and Fabrics on, that's what goes podcast.
[00:26:09] Joe: This is a podcast that is tangential as well about these nitty nitty-gritty stuff that like five people will care about sweet. But that's okay. All right, fibers
[00:26:22] Joe: starts with fibers. It does individual hair like structures? Now you mention that the dragon will was made of polyester Merino wool. What was the other one? Not. Okay.
[00:26:33] Joe: And those are different types of Fibers. Correct. Yes. Okay,
[00:26:38] Joe: all right. I'm trying to make sure that I got this. Well,
[00:26:41] Brigham: yeah, I fibers Are made out of all those different things. Okay, so
[00:26:48] Brigham: there's categorization and classification of fibers as well.
[00:26:51] Joe: Okay. So what kind of class classifications do we have here? So what? Yeah,
[00:26:57] Brigham: let's Let's start with fibers and we'll move through the progression. Okay? So
[00:27:03] Brigham: we get And I'm again, this is not end all be all and I'll probably for sure, miss some things, forget some things, not include some things. Yeah. Because we just dropped in here and started recording so. So fibers again. Fibers are what makes Yarns Yarns make a fabric. So starting with a fiber. You can have natural fibers synthetic fibers. It's it's not really accurate to say, well, man-made fibers versus non man-made.
[00:27:41] Brigham: Fibers will because In the end, a lot of you can make man-made fibers out of natural. Fiber structures. Natural components. So there are, there are, there are engineered fibers that come from well, it takes man-made engineering to I don't know to gather or to make usable fibers out of natural materials.
[00:28:15] Joe: Okay, that makes sense.
[00:28:16] Brigham: So like, What take wolf? For example, like a wool, the fiber there is just the hair. If you were to go and pluck a hair off a sheep, like that's a wool fiber. it's not usable yet because because man hasn't arranged it to be a usable. Piece, right? Okay.
[00:28:42] Brigham: but so, there's and then there's another Categorization of fibers within like, say natural fibers? Well, what's in the natural world? There's plants and animals that have fibers. Now plants, the most common one is cotton, the oldest man-made fabric. Of of natural fibers. I believe is linen. Which is comes from flax. Well, so man figured out a way to take a plant and extract the fibres. Or find useful fibers of that plant
[00:29:27] Brigham: to make Yarns out of, right? So, so within the natural fibers, you've got plant-based fibers, which are generally called cellulose fibers. Um, and then you have animal-based fibers, which are protein fibers like wool alpaca cashmere silk silk is silk, is an interesting one. It is an animal fiber and there's something unique about soap that we'll get into later. but it is a protein-based fiber and there's like there's all these different ways
[00:30:04] Brigham: of being of being able to identify down the fiber base, whether it's a cellulose or a protein fiber, And interestingly enough it all is like, very common sense of like, protein fiber. There's a burn test. What is your hair smell? Like, when you burn it, right? That's how you find out whether a fiber is a protein fiber or cellulose fiber. What does papers? So they paper right? That's a cellulose fiber. and
[00:30:36] Brigham: so, that's how you identify like what kind of fiber in my working with what kind of yarn is this if you burn it, if it smells like paper So you'll lose fiber. So
[00:30:44] Joe: interesting, I remember I'm going back. Elementary School, maybe Middle School. I feel like I did some sort of experiment. Where we figured out. How different? Fabrics or whatever they were. How they burned? That's I remember like some of them would melts and some of them would slowly burn or whatever, some of them like quickly like shrivel up. Yeah.
[00:31:09] Joe: A whole bunch of different stuff.
[00:31:10] Joe: Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. Okay.
[00:31:12] Joe: All right. So that's all so
[00:31:13] Brigham: you got. So yeah. So you've got plant and animal natural fibers, right? For some reason, I feel like I'm missing something there, but I'll move on and then and then you've got synthetic manufactured fibers. Those are Those are like very made by basically mixing chemicals by creating chemical reactions. And then their their comprised of molecular chains that that comes from the chemical reactions, right? And then the most common, you know, Synthetic
[00:31:58] Brigham: fibers out. There are nylon and polyester, like I think, most people listening to this, even if they're not even into gear will have heard of nylon or something or polyester, They're basically both Plastics, right? There their fossil fuel based like nylon. The base fossil fuel used for the chemical reactions is coal. Polyester. Its petroleum. So they're both fossil fuel-based
[00:32:27] Joe: I did not know that.
[00:32:28] Brigham: Yeah. So you you create chemical reactions to create long molecular chains. This is all obviously molecular submicroscopic but in the tangible what you actually see is basically to create a nylon or a polyester fiber you come up with a solution like think a liquid you're looking at it like Carol's syrup or something, right in a beaker. And
[00:33:00] Brigham: then you can engineer certain properties. By adjusting the molecular structure. That exists in that solution. So whether you want something that's going to end up, Hard or brittle or soft malleable half certain durability characteristics. You can adjust for example in nylon the number of carbon atoms Um, in that molecular chain. So you've also heard things like polymer, right? Polymer is again, it's just it's a type of terminology used to refer to
[00:33:43] Brigham: the molecular chains. You're like monomer will a polymer is poly multi multi monomers in a chain. So you can engineer different characteristics and properties into a solution, and then you can also engineer certain things. As that solution, is turned into a fiber. and and how that fiber is taken from the solution to a dry tangible fiber, which is again like a long hair like structure, Excuse me anyway. I'm keeping that I'm not I'm not that's
[00:34:27] Brigham: fine. So yeah. So there's you know polyester nylon. There's others, there's there. like I said, you can you Synthetic fibers are. They're obviously they're totally engineered and you're basically trying to like, create something for a certain purpose that has. You have a lot more control over the end product. Whereas like natural fibers like you're trying to make the best. You're trying to get, like, as much out of it, as you can,
[00:35:02] Brigham: but you are kind of like giving very, you're given parameters, right? Limited, it's limited because you didn't functionality, did not exactly put the DNA in that sheep, right? And so it's kind of its synthetic fibers. They're kind of more fun to talk about and think about because you can do things and there's there's different chemical reactions that you can make different fibers or different solutions to make fibers out of, you know,
[00:35:32] Brigham: you've heard of like, dyneema and Spectra and and other There's other probably other branded. names for what really is the same base fiber in Like, it's there, it's a pain, it's a mouthful, but you can have, you know, you've also heard of probably polypropylene. Polyethylene. And and polyethylene is like a very high level basic. Level of a, of a solution or a compound molecular compound. So there's all kinds of different directions
[00:36:10] Brigham: you can go. So like the Spectra that we use in our backpacks. That's an ultra high molecular weight. Polyethylene fiber. That's the same as You know, another popular one out there is dyneema, so they use the same molecular structure. The same chemical combination and reaction to create a solution. and then, So so the the components are called the ingredients of the soup. For Spectra and Dynamo is different than it is for
[00:36:46] Brigham: nylon, which is different than it is for polyester, which is different than it is for polypropylene. But it's, it's it's pretty cool. So, once you have, you are about
[00:36:57] Joe: to go ahead, go ahead.
[00:36:58] Brigham: Once you have, you know, with a synthetic fiber, right? You so then you've got the soup polyester, what's more common with polyester? Is that they'll they'll make the solution and then they'll extrude it into thick ribbon, like, like literally like, think thick ribbon and then they chop that up and a lot of the raw Goods of polyester, that's kind of how its transferred from supplier to supplier like chunks of plastic,
[00:37:27] Brigham: little bits of little chips of plastic, right, and When it gets to the, the fiber spinner, or the spinner, right? The spinning facility. Then they they basically melt that back down where they put it to a certain temperature that it's 10 past through a spinnerette, which is think of a spider think of Charlotte's Web. And Spider silk, right? The
[00:37:51] Joe: raw materials going through something passes through a spinner at and it comes out as think of
[00:37:57] Brigham: like fishing line, right? Hair like structure. That's plastic. Basically and
[00:38:03] Joe: much smaller than fishing. Yeah,
[00:38:05] Brigham: let's smaller fishing line and so but nylons the same way it goes, it's spun through a spinnerette and you can create different cross-sectional structures of a fiber. by the shape of the spinnerette think of like, you know, like, Like the noodle makers when you make this, make up the mash for Noodle and then you push. It through those. Pushes through a bunch of holes that comes out squiggly or you could like
[00:38:38] Brigham: make those shaped like a star or a square or an oval. And
[00:38:42] Brigham: that would give it a different property. Give it a different properties when it's when it's turned into a yarn and then all that shape of the Of the fiber. Yes, yeah
[00:38:53] Brigham: which is really cool. It's it's really fun to work with those things and So yeah. Those are those are some synthetic fibers. I like I said, there's glossing over a lot and probably it's got to be an endless
[00:39:08] Joe: list in their probably still. It really is
[00:39:11] Joe: still experimenting with that totally Sue, totally.
[00:39:14] Joe: So, when we talk about, Micron and denure. What are we talking about when we're talking with about fibers? So denier.
[00:39:30] Brigham: Is a measurement of the, the density. And or thickness of a fiber, but it's also more commonly used in the density and or thickness of a yarn. so, if you hear, you know, 30 dille nylon You're talking about a 30 denier thickness of the Yarns that are woven together.
[00:39:52] Joe: What is a denier? It's like in terms of like, how big is that? Oh
[00:39:58] Brigham: I put it in the product training for you guys. So I have documented somewhere but
[00:40:03] Joe: it's I can't grams. Yep. 9,000 meters of fiber? Yes. So so
[00:40:12] Joe: that's how much it weighs over that over 9,000 meters a mouse a lot.
[00:40:18] Brigham: Yep. So so the the den in denier is it refers to the density the d e, n in density. Okay.
[00:40:29] Joe: all right, so So is it just because they don't have any other type of measurement for businesses is way too
[00:40:36] Brigham: well and it's probably the light of the fiber once they once they decided to figure out that out there didn't want to ever deal with something like that again. So that just became like the standard or something.
[00:40:48] Joe: So what what is considered thin on the denier side, what's considered Heavy on the denier side. Sorry light and heavy. Yeah,
[00:40:57] Brigham: I mean, and we'll try and keep it within the scope of what's relevant to our podcast our understanding. So, so
[00:41:07] Brigham: like Something below. 30 denier would. That's that's a very, very fine. Yard. Okay, however, you want to put it you know, there's We've you know, we've worked with things that are seven a seven d and when we say 70 30 D that D is referring to the denier which is referring to the density and or thickness. So 70 is is very thin, we frankly haven't felt comfortable really making anything with the
[00:41:46] Brigham: 70 components that we've had, because They're brittle durability a substantial so you get shortcoming
[00:41:56] Joe: the number, the lower the number on the dually. I'm sure this is not for everything. Would that mean less durable of that type of Fiber. Yeah, okay.
[00:42:06] Brigham: That's a that's a good generality, good generality. But yeah, to answer your question, probably somewhere around 30 D and below is is getting really, really, really Fine. Really like,
[00:42:17] Joe: what's the lightest that we do here?
[00:42:19] Brigham: So, our, like our top, quilts sleeping bags are made with a 10d nylon. Okay. So
[00:42:27] Brigham: that's, you know, that's very it creates a very thin fabric. So and you can also equate, if, as long as you're You know, thinking single layer, like you can, you can translate the denier of a yard to the thickness and weight of a fabric. So generally, you know, in a in a woven fabric as long as you know that it's a single layer Like a 10d fabric is going to be lighter
[00:42:57] Brigham: and thinner than a 30 fabric.
[00:43:01] Joe: And then here is used for synthetic. Measurements. Yeah,
[00:43:06] Brigham: like for the most part, And then there's there's like, I think, you know, text is another. Distinction that's more used outside the US, like 10 years. Like the most common. Within the US. And it's more used with like synthetics yeah,
[00:43:34] Brigham: like the, the What would be used for like natural? Fibers is usually Micron Micron. So like oftentimes with wool with Merino wool. Like, you know, people want to cite like a number to give a reference to like how find the wool is Micron. Is the the thickness of that little hair comes off the sheep or the goat or the alpaca.
[00:44:02] Joe: So the thickness of the hair but is it necessarily the thickness of the yarn or the fabric can be for sure? Yeah. All right but
[00:44:11] Brigham: but Micron is more commonly just uses the reference to the fiber thicknesses itself. So With. Natural. Fabrics from natural Yarns. Yeah, Micron is definitely like the fiber level.
[00:44:36] Joe: Okay, so could you give us a range on when it comes to? Let's say our socks that we
[00:44:42] Brigham: five are Merino wool. Socks socks probably use a higher Micron because they need way more durability. Think of the pressure. And the repetition of pressure that goes into a pair of socks. And the bottoms of people's feet are generally more. Or less sensitive. They're usually more hardened calloused. So like you don't necessarily need like the softest finest wool, touching the bottom of your foot. You might not even be able to perceive
[00:45:19] Brigham: it because you don't have a ton of finite feeling you know on your heel for example or the outside edge of your big toe. So like with socks they would use like a higher Micron something probably like 20 plus, whereas you know, 18 micron Is a very fine Merino fiber. That's a very fine wool, fiber. That's very soft. What people oftentimes will kind of think about with wool is like itchiness and
[00:45:51] Brigham: scratchiness like people don't like that. Yeah,
[00:45:53] Brigham: so like the higher the Micron, the more the scratch you're going to be the more it's going to irritate people's skin. So the lower, the Micron the softer and the better, it feels against the Skin.
[00:46:07] Joe: So, when we're making products that are supposed to be against skin, We have some products in the future coming out like that. We have the Dragon Ball using Marine wall on the inside. Like you were saying, what kind of Micron level are we looking for in a product like that here at like, with an ultralight? Backpacking. Yeah. So
[00:46:25] Joe: that's that's a part.
[00:46:26] Brigham: Yeah. I mean, in my opinion and we are products, follow along with this would be like between like 18 and a half and 17 and a half. Micron Okay.
[00:46:36] Joe: And Is that that's pretty light?
[00:46:40] Brigham: Yeah, that's a very fine. That's a very fine wolf, fiber,
[00:46:44] Joe: and generally less. For most people less itchy, let's scratchy. Yeah for sure because
[00:46:49] Brigham: of that for sure
[00:46:50] Joe: I'm just making sure I can I can follow this. I'm sure that we want. I'm sure you follow yourself. I've just have to make sure that I have to understand this. So we have a hear a list of kind of common fibers and what they do. So when someone's talking about polyester or nylon cotton or wools specifically those ones, We can kind of delve into that because those are really common ones. Yeah, right. Let me
[00:47:17] Joe: let me. Let me. Go back to fibers one little bit.
[00:47:21] Brigham: Go ahead which I think it's good to know. So, in fibers. There's different lengths of fiber, so it in natural fibers, natural fibers. The length of the fiber is Never any longer than how it came off its origin, whether that's a plant or an animal. You're not making that fiber longer. However, you cut it off the Sheep, that's the length of the fiber, right? So,
[00:47:47] Brigham: those are called staple fibers because they're generally, they're short, they have an end links, right? The that's a classification is staple. Fiber that just means short sections. They're shorter. Is there a benchmark to what constitutes short? Probably but think of something like In feet feet to inches like staple fiber, little sections of fiber, because that's, as long as it ever existed in its life cycle. Synthetic fibers. Their original state is called
[00:48:27] Brigham: the filament. So synthetic fibers, they get spun and They're I don't know, thousands of feet. If not many many miles long, is it just it's just that that spinneret starts and the fiber comes gets extruded through that spinner at Like into a giant like car size role of fiber. Usually, with some synthetic fibers. They're spun into Yarns at the same time because it's what's called a filament fiber or a filament fiber.
[00:49:00] Brigham: Just means it's just one continuous length of that fiber. That Consider it infinite. Never ending right until they shut the machine down and the role the giant roll of fibers don't. But it's all one piece. and you can and you can translate that into Yarns too they'll make a yarn at the same time so they'll make a spinner at will say like Totally arbitrary example, five holes. So, five fibers come out
[00:49:32] Brigham: and they join together and they create a yarn, right? Then. And there you've heard a monofilament like monofilament. That's like very common phishing line. That's just a single. Single hair, single fiber of that. And that fiber is the yarn. So, a yarn can be multiple fibers or a single fiber, but it's a filament just means that it's one continuous piece. There's technology that you can take a filament fiber. And then you
[00:50:07] Brigham: can at the same time spin staple. Fibers think short, length fibers. Around it or within multiple filament, multiple filament fibers. So that you get Different texture, different properties, different function of the fabric. And then so you can kind of you. That's how you can introduce a natural fiber into a synthetic fiber,
[00:50:31] Joe: you mean not the yarn. yeah, with
[00:50:34] Brigham: as you make a yard and you make a synthetic natural yarn, you know, you're taking like You know, you're taking that synthetic fiber and you're spinning. Natural staple fibers onto that yarn to create, you know, a blended Yarn. Yeah. And
[00:50:55] Joe: then I'll go that'll make the fabric have different types of properties. Yes, yeah. Yep.
[00:50:59] Joe: All right, I did have a note on here. You wanted to get back to Silk. So yeah.
[00:51:04] Joe: So we hit up these common. So
[00:51:07] Brigham: in those, classifications of staple versus filament everything, but silk in the natural fiber world all natural fibers, except silk are staple fibers, silk is the only natural filament fiber that we know of, okay. So
[00:51:24] Brigham: think a silkworm, that's silkworm. Think of it as the vat of a synthetic solution that goes through a spinneret. Like, that whole thing is the silkworm. So
[00:51:35] Brigham: it's like got the solution. It's got the hole and it's extrudes that silk as a filament. Very interesting.
[00:51:45] Joe: I thought that might be what it was, which so yeah,
[00:51:48] Brigham: why still is so? So filament Yarns have have great softness, you know, because if you think they don't have lots of little Jagged edges of fibers poking out, right? That's why silk is so Soft and smooth, and has that Sheen. Mmm.
[00:52:05] Joe: Okay. Well, let's get down to some of these at least four of these really common fibers. I guess we can talk about dyneema and Spectra a little bit. If you don't have any notes on this but anyway, all right let's talk about polyester. Very common, very common in clothing, common in our gear. What are some of the properties of polyester?
[00:52:32] Brigham: So again, it's a think of it as plastic based, right? Petroleum-based fiber. And that General General properties that are useful for in our area of the world and our industry. For people know if it's It's a synthetic fiber. It's very, very hydrophobic. Which means it's It's difficult for. Water. To adhere to it. And I like to make those terminology to just distinctions because there's no such thing. Like a fiber, doesn't have
[00:53:12] Brigham: a conscience. Her conscience. Write a fiber doesn't have will or desire. So actually I don't like saying things like something doesn't want to hold on to water. Like that's like a way for for humans to like, make a connection. But in terms of just like, Helping people really understand that it's the chemical molecular structure of polyester. Is such that, it makes it hard for water to adhere to it. Yeah, it doesn't
[00:53:41] Brigham: absorb water. It's hard for water to Stick to it and therefore absorb into it is this
[00:53:47] Joe: accurate point, four point, four percent moisture regain. So
[00:53:51] Brigham: 0.4% moisture. Regains that that's that's that's a measure of you know if you're to Put it in a controlled. Moisture. Like you're you're dictating the moisture in in a room or in the environment that that fibers in its the percentage of of water that basically absorbs. So
[00:54:17] Joe: and if anybody's lost hydrophobic means generally. Does not hold on to water. Hydrophilic means it holds onto water. Yes, it is all yesterday. So and phobic, you know that Fear phobia. So phobia
[00:54:35] Brigham: and phobia. Like, Ophelia
[00:54:38] Joe: loves Hamlet's. Love interest. Yeah. so, Says on here, very good strength and abrasion resistance. Yep. Good for wash and wear.
[00:54:52] Brigham: Yeah, that was what. It's a polyester was a was like a big Breakthrough in like laundry care and and Garment Care. Because it Won its relatively an inexpensive. When, when think about like Average used to
[00:55:11] Brigham: have to be made from 100%
[00:55:13] Brigham: natural fibers and Yarns that the work that text takes place. To
[00:55:22] Brigham: at the very Ross, level of materials, the plant or the animal, the work that takes place to make. His functional garment, right? Well that made for example, wool was very common cotton was very common but it made the maintenance and the care for those garments more rigorous and and a lot of room for error. So like for example wool like a wool suit will suits are still like Top dollar suit. They're
[00:55:51] Brigham: very highly. That's a nice suit. But when people start figuring out ways to make that or synthetic fibers, right, to make something less expensive that's easier to take care of. So polyester was a huge breakthrough, breakthrough in like wash and wear it like it became kind of Known or notorious for its ability. It's just like, you know,
[00:56:15] Brigham: get it dirty, throw it in the laundry and not worry about it doesn't shrink right?
[00:56:19] Joe: So, that's something like when you're buying clothing. Specifically. It's like, you know, you don't want to get something that's 100% gone, not most of the time. So yeah, I don't, I don't want to have to deal with it in the
[00:56:34] Brigham: laundry. So it's just, it's just way more forgivable in the laundry Department, right? So
[00:56:39] Brigham: so when you say has very good strength and abrasion resistance. So it's interesting and in textile classification like very good is a classification there's there's like there's
[00:56:52] Brigham: like a common sense so like can you think of anything any word that would you would use to say, that's better than very good.
[00:57:01] Joe: It's not at the moment. Now while I'm pressured here. An exceptional. Excellent outstanding. There you go. Yeah. So like that's ours. Yeah. So like
[00:57:09] Brigham: but it's funny because I can in in the textile word like those things matter so like very good strength and abrasion resistance that's a classification and it is how it sounds. Very good is very good, right? So
[00:57:21] Joe: anyway, What about nylon? We got nylon here. Another common synthetic? Fiber.
[00:57:29] Brigham: Yeah, again it's another, it's another plastic. Interesting thing about nylon. you know, like nylon you can like Your? Your cell phone could be made out of nylon. Right? You're watch. Band could be man on nylon like Yet. 10th is all made on an island or pants are made out of an island. So if it's just that goes back to like your engineering whatever you
[00:57:56] Joe: want with nylon, it's pretty cool. Fabric density, or the density of the piece itself, and
[00:58:01] Joe: then you set base solution.
[00:58:04] Brigham: You. Put in the ingredients, you want. At different levels. To create the end product that you want. So that's another plastic. it is not, it is, it is still classified as a hydrophobic Fibre yarn fabric, but it does actually absorb more moisture than polyester like. Three times more, you know what I mean? It was just it's just interesting because like That's not like massively perceptible. because what's the number that I have
[00:58:43] Joe: 2.8 to 4% so like you know,
[00:58:46] Brigham: five to ten times more, but if you're thinking 2.8 to 4% that's a very low percentage and there's a cut off somewhere, For what classifies hydrophobic and this is well below that kind of that cut off. So, in the end so like falling Esther. It's very hydrophobic. What that means is if it when it does get wet, because it does not mean that it's it can't get wet. So it will get
[00:59:11] Brigham: wet, it just dries very fast because It's very difficult for water to adhere to the fiber. So think of that with nylon. 2.833 and a half four percent, moisture absorbent, right? It absorbs that moisture but it's also still not easy for that water to adhere to the fiber, so it also wants to dry out faster. So nylon is also hydrophobic but between the nylon and polyester nylon it does absorb or hold
