Wool Über Mitts


justin_baker

justin_baker

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Has anybody heard of "boiled wool"? These look very interesting.
http://www.bradleyalpinist.com/cart...ducts_id=467&zenid=8cg74d8pjla6alnu3q120u8aq7
These Dachstein Wool of Austria "boiled wool" mitts (sweaters available too) are tried and true favorites for extreme cold temperatures. The boiled wool, also known as "hot water treatment process" or "fulled" wool, produces an insulative wool layer that is wind resistant, heavy-duty in durability, breathability, and incredibly warm. This style of mitt is still being used by many high altitude climbers, for their exceptional warmth and durablilty, and can be over layered with a shell mitt.
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Dachstein%20Uber%20Mitts.jpg
 
I've got a pair of Dachstein wool mittens and socks that I've had many years. Very warm and weather resistant.
 
I've seen boiled wool clothing articles before. The way I understand it, basically it's pre-shrinking the wool before making the garment. That not only keeps it from shrinking with use/washing but I would imagine it also tightens up the fibers so you get a denser weave (hence more wind resistance).
 
I thought all wool was boiled in the cleaning stage before Carding it. I figured this was a marketing scheme like "New ford focus! Now with seats!"
 
Ah, wikipedia elaborates a bit:

Boiled Wool
Boiled wool is a special type of fabric primarily used in berets, scarves, vests, cardigans, coats and jackets. It is created using a mechanical knitting process which involves a set pattern that is then shrunk. It can also be a woven fabric which is shrunk, compressing the fibres together.

Origins
Wool felt and felted wool are similar to boiled wool, all of these processes date back to at least the Middle Ages. The word felt itself comes from West Germanic feltaz.

Process
Wool felt is created commercially and results in uniform fabric thickness. Felted wool is created by first weaving wool to create an item then washing it, resulting in a solid, dense fabric that is about 30% smaller than the original woven material. Boiled wool is produced industrially and is characteristically found in Tyrolean textiles of Austria and of South America.

Very large woven sheets of wool fabric are first either dyed or not, with a design on them. These are boiled and shrunk without using any chemicals. Because of this and other factors, boiled wool is a close fabric, very warm, windproof and usually does not itch.
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I have had a set of Dachstein wool mittens,socks, and a hat for close to 37 years. The all are super thick, looks like a regular wool knit item outside, but has a very high loft terry like inside. Mine are so warm (HOT) that I have hardly ever used them. The socks are so thick that I would need bigger boots! Jeff
 
Dachstein wool mits are THE classic european winter gloves. Very warm, pretty wind resistant (I believe they are made large then washed and dried hot to shrink). I had a pair when I was younger and found them incredible warm (I've lost one but the other is as good now as it was 30 years ago). I found they had two main drawbacks: 1) when winter climbing I felt insecure gripping ice axes & hammers (no problems with the longer walking axes, but the short ones for going up near verticle and verticle snow and ice). The newer material gloves with fingers and grippy surfaces feel much more secure to me. 2) Wet snow tended to ball up so you looked like you had two large snow balls on the ends of your arms and then freeze - mind you when covered in ice they truly were wind risistant :-).

So if you like traditional materials, are not intent on technical ice climbing, and tend to be in colder areas with dry snow - you will be hard pressed to find a better, harder wearing mitten. Also if you are scrambling over ice covered bouloders etc, the wool is much more grippy than the new materials, and they make great pot holders as well.
 
I have the Dachstein Mitts (and hat!). Both are very nice, but neither is very resistant to cold winter wind. An outer shell (e.g. unlined leather chopper mitts) works well in most situations when combined with the wool "inner" mitt.
 
They are about the best wool mitts ever made, but like all wool once they are wet they take a while and a half to dry... I still have mine though, under shells mitts they are tough to beat as long as you can dry them out at night.
 
I love the way they ( Dachstein) mould to your hands after wearing for a while and if it wasn't for the fact that they are much better for dry cold than our wet cold conditions I would be buying more pairs. Nikwax helps but they do take ages to dry when soaked. The best of the traditional gloves and mittens ( yes there also used to be gloves ) not cheap but they do last for about a decade and they can be darned if they get holes in them. I agree that they can slip on polished shafts and there are better products for technical climbing but as a bushcraft mitten they deserve to be at the top of the short list especially if you don't like overmittens with liners
 
I love my Dachstein Mitts. So much that I bought a second pair because I was scared they would go out of business. Then I'm pretty sure they did...gone... I grabbed another pair of dacsteins with the orthodox label also...and the third pair was expensive. My original pair has a couple of holes I need to sew the other two pairs are like new. Put them under gore tex shells and you are comfortable down to single digits. A pair of these will last you decades. I just LOVE them. I would love to have a sweater and a hat!
 
justin_baker said:
Has anybody heard of "boiled wool"? These look very interesting.
http://www.bradleyalpinist.com/cart...ducts_id=467&zenid=8cg74d8pjla6alnu3q120u8aq7

Dachstein%20Uber%20Mitts.jpg
Click to expand...

I bought my Dachstein mittens in late 1979 or early 1980, pretty sure anyway. Bought them from REI. Just checked their website and they do not have them online. Look just like the ones in the picture.
Have been wearing them a lot this winter and wore them tonight walking the dog with temps in the single digits. My hands were very warm and comfortable with no wind blowing. Nights when there is wind, they are ok, but would be better to have a chopper or shell cover for them to keep the wind out.
You cannot go wrong with these mittens and a shell.

Z
 
They're much more effective inside a shell. I've been cross-country skiing in this pair since 1972 and they must have better than 500 miles on them. One of the reps brought an unboiled sample into our store once and it was huge - on the order of maybe half again as large as the finished mitten would be. We also sold the Dachstein sweaters for a short while. They were kind of hard to get in this country and at the time the retail price was something like $55! They made them in the light gray and also red. We got a few gray ones and I figured I'd hold off for a red one. Never happened, unfortunately.

The business was very different in the days before the recession of the late 1970s when interest rates climbed to as much as 18% on inventory financing. Before that time, we could stock all kinds of really neat stuff, even if it was slow-selling stuff that could sit around for a while adding character to the store before it finally sold. We had stacks of Hudson Bay blankets, damned near every wool shirt or jacket that Woolrich made, Peter Storm oiled wool sweaters, Icelandic wool sweaters, lots of Norwegian wool gear, including wool fishnet long underwear We had Malone Pants, wool knickers, a fantastic selection of wool socks, Dachsteins, a boot room full of real hiking boots (Vasque, Raichle, Pivetta, Galibier, etc.) not the glorified tennis shoes sold today, pack baskets, half a dozen models of rawhide or neoprene-laced wooden snowshoes, a wall of cross-country skis, etc. - and this was all in small-ish stores in the middle of central Illinois corn country.

Once interest rates spiked (and the discount house mentality took over) most of this stuff had to go, in favor of inventory that would turn over two or three times per season. To someone who appreciated both traditional and high-tech modern gear it was really heart breaking, but we were all scrambling just to stay in business. The whole Cabellas/Bass Pro/Gander discount house mentality offered customers some cheap prices and drove many of the small shops out of business, but the selection of truly great traditional gear and salespeople who actually knew how to use it and how to sell it went right down the tubes for good. Once the coast was clear and the small shops were mostly gone, they could slowly bring their margins back up. In some ways, it's like the current ammo shortage. It is driven by customers who are bound and determined to screw themselves and everybody else.

Rant over....but they are great mittens if you can find some.
 

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Had mine for about 30years now. Excellent. Used in my ice climbing days. buy them
 
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Looking in my gear stash I happen to have my original Scottish overmitts in red canvas, made to go over Dachsteins; currently sit over my old Helly Hansen pile mittens
 
Dachstein's are worth every cent. Unfortunately Todd pretty well has defined the current state of affairs for such products.

Grab em when you can.
 
I have a pair of these mittens, and would like to get a pair of choppers to fit over them. Anyone want to point me in the right direction for some good choppers? Anybody here made their own? Want to make me a pair? ( I could mail you the dachsteins to get the size right ) what hide works best for choppers if given the choice? Lots of questions here , can you help me out?
 
hastings said:
I have a pair of these mittens, and would like to get a pair of choppers to fit over them. Anyone want to point me in the right direction for some good choppers? Anybody here made their own? Want to make me a pair? ( I could mail you the dachsteins to get the size right ) what hide works best for choppers if given the choice? Lots of questions here , can you help me out?
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Tractor Supply has them. (Don't buy the lined ones)

My contribution to the picture parade. My wife knits my boiled wool mitts, just oversized wool mittens and put in pot of boiling water for about 3 minutes and let dry, it's just mild felting. My chooper mitts are about 40 years old and kept supple/water resistant by the standard use of Bag Balm.Back in the day you could exchange your yearly deer hide for a pair of these deer skin chopper mitts and yes, the boiled mittens and chopper mitt combo is the warmest hand wear you will find.
 
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I have a sweater somewhere made out of thick boiled wool. I could fall asleep in the wood in a blizzard wearing nothing but that sweater and be alright. the downside is that it's too damned hot to wear if you're actually moving around, and it's so thick I feel like randy in 'a Christmas story' whenever I wear it.
 
What they call boiled wool around here is a woman’s fashion that seems to have become crazy popular locally. The girls wear sweaters that are shrunk to ridiculously small sizes. The girls are buying up every sweater they can lay hands on at thrift stores and boiling them to shrink them down to something that resembles a sleeved felt vest.

They typically wear the sweater over a white man’s shirt open at the collar and usually un-tucked in over a short skirt. They look like fools, but I guess it is a passing fashion phase.
 
the_dude said:
I have a sweater somewhere made out of thick boiled wool. I could fall asleep in the wood in a blizzard wearing nothing but that sweater and be alright. the downside is that it's too damned hot to wear if you're actually moving around, and it's so thick I feel like randy in 'a Christmas story' whenever I wear it.
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It's a still( no wind ) 9 degrees here today, I wore my austrian commando sweater today over a silk weight long sleeve patagonia undershirt. Perfect! If it gets too warm I unbutton the sweater and voila , instant cooling off. I'd really like to find a simple ( minimal pockets , two chest, two hand ) waxed canvas Jac shirt I'd be set for all sorts of colder weather.
 
SeaCapt, DDT, thanks fellas. I will get over to TSC sometime this week and see what they have and how they fit. If they fit and are made in the USA or Canada , then I'm good to go. I will make a call to frost River when I'm done typing this up, it says on that link the liners are made in USA, but it doesn't say anything about the leather choppers. I'm still wide open to the idea of giving my business to one of our members here if they would like to take on the project of making a pair. I mean there's made in the USA, and then there's giving business and money to a fellow member, a different form of shopping local in a way.
 
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