My new rig (BP/W)

TTU_Reefer said:
Thanks that was a really useful post, I reworked my gear and I am going to look for an O-ring.
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Cool! You're very welcome - having a little personal help is always best. :)

I actually am using a small Z-knife, because I don’t want to bring a blade to Mexico.
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Yep, also cool! Some guys like Z-knives, some guys like regular knives, and some guys like shears. Some guys wear multiples... But honestly, aside from needing one for work (I use it to pry barnacles and cut line caught in props), I don't think I've ever actually needed it.

The possibility of entanglement in monofilament or whatever is very real - I wouldn't ever recommend diving without a cutting tool of some sort - but that said, I've never actually had to use it for that purpose. Any time I've ever gotten tangled in mono, I've had better results untangling than cutting (cutting makes a mess and often tangles worse). Of course, your mileage may vary - but whatever cutting tool you choose, make sure it's there on the off chance that you'll need it.

I am worried about trimming the extra on my harness, I don’t want to till I’m 100% sure it’s right.
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Hahahahahaa... Yeah, we all tend to go through that stage. Something about cutting the webbing just doesn't feel right... :)

I like to cut my left waist strap so that it'll fold under and leave another six inches to a foot or so, which I secure with one or both of the inner tubes (the other I use for the excess RIGHT waist strap). The right waist strap I cut so that, when I'm wearing the rig, there's about three inches of space between the end of the strap and my left hip D-ring (SPG D-ring).

Before you go and cut, though, keep in mind that you're likely to end up threading a couple of weights onto the waist strap, to replace your weight belt. I know that you aren't comfortable with the idea of non-ditchable weight, but once you realize that you're only carrying like six pounds total on your belt at any one time, you'll probably get a lot more comfortable with it... So err on the long side as you cut, and you should be fine.

Another idea is to go ahead and purchase another 12' of good 2" webbing - I like DiveGearExpress.com's - so that you have another harness available to you the moment that you cut yours too short. With that as a backup, you'll have more confidence about your cut.

When cutting your webbing, use a pair of sharp scissors and round the ends into large semicircles so that they're a lot easier to feed through the buckle. I've tried using a variety of shapes, but always come back to the semicircle. Then use either a blowtorch-style lighter - or even better yet, a soldering iron - to sear the edges so they won't fray. Be really liberal when searing the edges of your webbing so that they're hard and melted a lot, and it'll make donning your rig easier. A lot of melting also increases durability. Just be sure NOT to make the webbing "thick" - that is, do a lot of melting, but keep the webbing thin - so that it feeds through the buckle with ease. If you have a big ball of melting on the end of your webbing, it can be a pain to thread through the buckle.

I am going to take some pictures of me wearing it tonight and post them so you all can critique.
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Sounds great! I look forward to it. Something tells me that you're pretty much going to be dead-on. :)

I think I’m going to order a blue wing, I think the coolness of the camo would quickly fade. But I’m not sure yet, it doesn’t really matter I guess. I have been reading great reviews of the Mach V series wing, and the overall "O" shape as opposed to the "U" shape wing.
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Be wary of colored fabrics to dive with - sun, seawater, salt crystals and chlorine from your local pool all work to make colored fabrics fade. Blue tends to fade to a cheesy-looking periwinkle, and your camo will probably fade towards a "Desert Storm" motif. Black, as it fades, is still black, if not a little brown or gray... Which doesn't look so bad and darkens when you get it wet again.

That said, my bet is that the cordura of a wing is probably the MOST colorfast of all of the fabrics you're wearing... So it's probably not a big deal for your first 300 or 400 dives. If it were me, I'd choose black, but my bet is that the blue is probably the coolest color there, and definitely unique.

The camo, though, sounds like it'd be cool, too. Your choice, my friend.

Oh another question, is the second stage around your neck your main or octo? I was thinking of doing my octo like this so in a buddy OOA emergency I could hand my main off and have my octo right there. Is this correct or do I need to adjust my logic?
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Nope, you don't need to adjust your logic at all. It's quite sound for a couple of reasons:

1. In an OOA (I'm going to call it an "OOG" - "Out of Gas" - instead of an "Out of Air" because sometimes you may be breathing something besides air) situation, often the OOG diver will, under the stress of the situation, grab your reg right out of your mouth. It's not supposed to happen that way, but stress and nothing to breathe do funny things to people. That's because there's all of these delicious-looking bubbles coming from that second stage! With your logic regarding a bungeed "octo" (we just call it a "backup"), it's not a big deal - no emergency on your part - because that's what you would have done anyway... Given him your primary. A backup with a short necklace can be picked up by your teeth, without even using your hands... A nice trick when your hands are full as in the scenario above.

2. If you're donating your primary, you know for sure that the reg you're donating WORKS. You were just breathing on it, after all! There is zero chance of the reg that's going to the OOG diver having sand in it or something wrong with it. This is really great, because your buddy probably didn't find out that they needed gas until they went to inhale, and there was nothing there. That is, they don't have a breath to hold, and then they had to locate you... So... They've been OOG for a while! They need gas NOW!

3. If there's a problem with your backup, you're better prepared to handle the issue than your OOG buddy is... You're ahead of him in terms of breathing by probably 10 or 20 seconds, and it is, after all, YOUR backup... So it's on your rig and close to your body where you can fix a problem. Worst case scenario, you can then signal to "share air" if you can't get your backup to work. If he'd gotten a bad backup, he'd be freaking by now. :)

4. Having a long hose primary (more on this later) and a necklaced backup will enable you to have many more hose options later... Especially those that are required for wreck, cave, cavern, or decompression diving. If you do a necklaced backup now, then you won't need to learn that configuration down the road... And you'll have already mastered that "type" of gear and be used to it and and expert with it. Necklacing your backup today will make the learning curve much easier later.

5. Later in diving - during more advanced diving - you may end up diving with several different types of gas at the same time. You may, for example, have trimix (a deep mix of helium, oxygen and nitrogen) in your tanks (called "back gas" or "bottom mix" because what's in there is what you breathe on the bottom) and have 50% oxygen or 100% oxygen in separate bottles "slung" on your side. These high-oxygen gasses help aid and speed decompression in staged-decompression diving. Obviously, then, you'll have two second stages on your back gas, plus another stage on each bottle - a total of four second stages from which to breathe... And each of them with their own purpose or "depth window." That is, one of these gasses might be the right gas to breathe at one depth, but might be poisonous (or incapable of keeping you alive) at another depth. Sounds freaky, I'm sure, but it's true. If you're donating gas from your mouth, there's never any confusion during an OOG - you're always handing your buddy (or he's taking from you) a gas that's safe to breathe, delivered by a second stage that's working properly. If you're donating something else, it can significantly complicate the issue. Again, probably not something that you'll have to worry about right now, but if you commit to donating from your mouth now, it's one less thing you have to relearn later on as your dive style advances.

...So no, you don't have to adjust your logic at all. You will, however, have to deal with the constant looks of bewilderment from your instructor and fellow students when they look at your necklace and say, "How are you supposed to donate that thing if it's around your neck?" :)

Smart instructors - or those that have dived enough and/or dived in more advanced diving - will understand right off why you're choosing the configuration that you are, and respect you for the choice.

In the photo above, I am ONLY diving a necklaced backup reg - that is, my rig doesn't have a primary second stage on it at all. (Which, I suppose, makes my backup THE primary.) The reason is because I was cleaning boats that day, which is to say that I was diving in like a foot and a half of water. My backup plan was to poke my head out of the water and take a breath. :)

For what it's worth, the hose that I'm wearing is a 24" hose - about a foot shorter than a "regular" primary hose. The reason is because anything longer gets hung up and beat up when I'm working between the boat and the dock.

The necklace also helps in this situation, allowing me to spit it out and communicate verbally with topside if I need to, and still be able to grab the reg without letting go of tools.

Interesting that you'd catch that out of the photo... Sharp eyes!

I am going to a spring quarry about 3 miles away the first weekend in March to test everything, and then it’s off to Cancun for diving :)
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Oh, man... You're gonna have a ball...

Yeah, the only issue I foresee is people on the boat looking at your rig and saying, "Holy smokes... What the heck is that thing?" :) It's roughly akin to bringing a new Hummer or Ferrari to a riceburner parking lot on a Saturday night. :) Clearly, you'll have better and nicer stuff than anyone there - but don't expect other people to be happy about it... Tim and I (and every other backplate/wing owner) regularly catch crap from jealous people who have probably never seen something like that before. Just don't let them get to you. :)
 
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Thanks! The comment "My backup plan was to poke my head out of the water and take a breath" still has me crackin up. ha ha

I think I’m going to make my own necklace out of bungee, save a buck and can make it the length I need. I have ALWAYS had issues with my back up reg just floating around as I dive, because it came out of those terrible "octo holders" or when tucked in a pocket.

oh and david, its not 3miles..its 3 hours...my hands arnt always connected properly to my brain. Its really great diving for west texas, shallow as all can be...but clear and loads of fish and turtles. Deep diving around here is blue hole NM, but its not ideal for me. 85ft deep, narrow walls, 58 degrees, not that fun, nothing to see but gray walls. On the other hand its so clear you can see all the way to the bottom.
 
TTU_Reefer said:
Thanks! The comment "My backup plan was to poke my head out of the water and take a breath" still has me crackin up. ha ha
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Yep, that's usually the best solution - simple, low-tech and easy. In this industry especially, the really cool, shiny new gear has a tendency to make us all want high-tech solutions... Not a good idea in life support. :)

I think I’m going to make my own necklace out of bungee, save a buck and can make it the length I need.
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Perfect! Highly recommended. I like the thicker (3/16") stuff from DiveGearExpress.com.

Knot one end, and then cut off the zip tie holding your mouthpiece on to your second stage. Take a new zip tie (available at any hardware store) and place it back onto your second stage, pinning the new bungee beneath it. The bungee should sit right over the seams in the mouthpiece. After you've cut the bungee to length (it should be relatively short, just barely short enough so that you can catch the stage with your teeth while laying down and horizontal - you won't be able to do it vertically) knot the bungee and tighten the zip tie "good n tight." Trim the zip tie - then I always take an emery board or file and smooth off my trimming so it's not poking at the corner of my mouth (I always place the zip tie's "slide" in the right corner of my mouth for comfort).

I have ALWAYS had issues with my back up reg just floating around as I dive, because it came out of those terrible "octo holders" or when tucked in a pocket.
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Yep, this will definitely solve that problem. :)
 
on the way: oxycheq STA, 2x scubapro wanna be cam bands/straps.

Blue Mach V Wing Il order when I get back from interview in Dallas...gotta switch my mind off scuba.
 
You'll love the cam bands and hourglass STA. They rock.

Blue wing: Very cool, indeed! You'll have to let us know how the color holds up. Got a pic?
 
just got home, my package is waiting for me in my apartment office. which I ordered from scubatoys...while I was in dallas...then I visited scuba toys shop in dallas...STUPID! oh well shipping was free...
 
i KNOWW!!!! I need too, im very much behind on pictures.

I still am unwinding from a stressful but successful testing weekend. its beer o clock
 
SeaJayInSC said:
"Testing weekend?" Testing your new rig?

Can't wait to hear more...
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I wish...

Police testing.

I did get the two piece oxycheq STA because I heard(read) it helps with the allignment of the dive rite plate and oxycheq wing ( adjustable) I like them but I def can see how they could get annoying keeping them alligned. Can I lock-tight the wing nuts on the bolts? or maybe just use teflon tape leaving them removable on the boat?

Or will they stay put and not "un"adjust?

Thanks, pictures coming soon I promise :mixed:
 
it seems the diverite plate is the standard 11" holes(or at least mine is). Shoulda measured that before, oh well if I dont like the two piece STA il just get a one piece unit after I dive it.
 
Yep, they're all 11" centers - so, aside from manufacturing tolerances, all wings should fit all backplates.

...Apparently except one that I'm looking at now. It's got 5 1/2" centers, and reverses the bolts. Terrible design, but the guy's convinced that the rest of the world is wrong :rolleyes: More on this plate later. :)

Anyway, the "Mini STA" that you bought works fine. I'd have done the "light" STA, but the mini's essentially the same thing. You'll love it. :)

Scott Koplin's STAs ("Oxycheq") come with bolts, which include wingnuts and lock washers. These sit in a recessed channel so they're not touching your back. They work great as they come, and you shouldn't need any loctite.

That said, I always replace my wingnuts (designed so that you can flip-flop from doubles to singles without tools) with stainless steel nylocks. I just think it looks nicer, and I've never had them come apart or out of adjustment.

...Any of these will work just fine. If you feel like you need loctite, you can use that, but I'd say just go for the nylocks and tighten them down with a wrench and be done with it. :)
 
thanks, yea I didnt see the washers be "lock" washers, they are smooth on both sides. Maybe im just used to the lock washers with grooves.

LOVE the cam bands... just took a picture
 
oh and nylocks sound much better. they are the SS nuts with a nylon ring inside the grooves? seems like they will hold very nicely.
 
Yep, those are them. I got mine at Lowe's. Problem solved. :) Make sure they're stainless, though.

The STA should come with bolts, washers AND lockwashers... And wingnuts, unless Scott's changed things, for some reason.

...But like you, I like the nylocks. They just look better, IMHO. :) I even took a dremel to the bolts and rounded off their ends so that they are flush with the nylocks.

...Kinda compulsive, but it was just my way of making my rig "special." :)

Any way you cut it, it'll all work well, so it shouldn't be anything to worry about. :)

There are some companies (Oxycheq and DeepSeaSupply come to mind) that sell special nuts with a different look... You may want to check them out so that you can "customize" your rig. :)

...And Halcyon makes a back pad and a lift bag/SMB pouch that covers the whole plate and is sandwiched between your back and the plate. I personally found the pad to be pointless (neoprene is a great pad already), but I did like the pouch. Kinda a cool "Houdini" trick. :)

That said, there's value in the plain backplate, too... Simple, concise, and minimalist. I like the way it looks, personally, too, when it's sitting on the boat. :)
 
I like the silver back plate look too :)

I ordered a navy blue Oxycheq #30 wing today, 3 day shipping. stand by! pictures to be uploaded tonight of rig without the wing.
 
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