Sidemount harness

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Re: Sources for Wedgie-Resistant Cave Suit

Postby barcelonacvr » Jun 28, 2006 2:34 pm

Squirrel Girl wrote:
cmyoung wrote:I have had good results with suits from Dragon Caving Gear in the UK. Their suits have suspenders and they will make suits to measure.
Dragon is no longer. I checked with them a few days ago as their website was still up. They're a family owned business and the family is retiring and moving to another country!

Bummer! Their suits looked good, and I wanted one of their cave diving harnesses. And now I can get neither. :panic:



Martyn Farr's harness is really nice as an alternate..maybe?Duncan certainly informed me well.
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Re: Sources for Wedgie-Resistant Cave Suit

Postby Squirrel Girl » Jun 28, 2006 2:50 pm

eramosakarst wrote:Martyn Farr's harness is really nice as an alternate..maybe?Duncan certainly informed me well.
Someone else pointed out Martyn's harness. I looked at that, used an online currency converter, and decided I could probably sew a nearly identical harness for about $30 in parts and he charges $221. The only thing I don't quite get is that he has a couple of bungies to hold the wing in place???? That makes no sense to me. I'm still trying to figure out how to do a better job with that. I have a grommet installer, but I think it has crappy grommets, not the super high quality, probably SS that Dive Rite has on its wing. But I guess since no tanks will be attached (like backmounted to the Transpac), it doesn't need super strength.

BTW, do you know where to get super stretchy bungie to use for the tank valves? I tried out a Dive Rite sidemount kit for my Transpac, and it did a horrible job. They bungie was so stiff, it pinched my fingies.

Sorry I haven't answered your TDS PM, I got super busy, and didn't have time yet to re-read it and respond. The rest of the week is gonna be killer busy, too!
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Postby barcelonacvr » Jun 28, 2006 4:00 pm

Barbara: No rush :grin: I am happy to converse and I have more time than I will ever know what to do with.

Martyn's website does not show the harness well.There is a lot of heavy sewing material in the weight belt portion and I preferred how it sat on me.I cyber chatted with Duncan Price and he gave me a very good comparison of the 2 and let me know why he uses Martyn's ( at least at that time) I could send you his comparison if you like? I am sure he would not mind.

He suggested beefing up the bungee material and I added a crotch strap.If you wrap the bungee around the valve and then connect the clip/double ender etc to the d ring it sucks the tank valves in very nicely to the armpit area.It cost me just a little more than the Dragon at the time with shipping.

For the small bedding plane stuff we are pushing the harness with a drysuit was perfect!! I had an Armadillo as well ,which was nice but non sufficient for the tiny stuff.I did not get to use either very much re my PM.Dewayne on the Cave divers forum bought my Farr harness,maybe he can give you a heads up.I may have some photos I could send,. To me the Dragon seemed more set up as a more stage bottle slung profile and stuffing/attaching the wing underneath.This is far too thick for my local stuff but I may be wrong in my impressions regarding the Dragons set up.

I do believe BTW that someone was selling a Dragon Harness on the Cave divers forum in the equipment sale section.Perhaps they still have it for sale.

I buy my bungee at our Local Canadian tire stores but I have a few URLs for good on line sources.I will dig them up but I won't be able to post until Saturday as I am off to photograph and organize some cave dive site access for others. I am sure many of the other excellent posters may have sources.Any bungee here gets stiff quick :(

I do hear your thoughts on self sewing and it certainly has merit.I could not sew my way out of a bag if my life depended on it,I can grommet though :grin:Dr.Sawatzky,pretty well our top cave diver sews his own harnesses and has much sucess,although many years of tweaking refined the system to his satisfaction.
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Postby Squirrel Girl » Jun 28, 2006 4:30 pm

Eramosa... I moved these posts out of the Cave Suit thread and over to it's own in Cave Diving. Will finish responding to your detailed post when I get more time. Yep, crotch strap seems important! :grin:

I will say that Cindy tried to teach me sidemounting with my new Transpac and newer sidemount kit. She thinks it's a problem with DR's stuff that it doesn't work well with women's shapes. She didn't find the Armadillo to work well, either, though I've heard others rave about them.

She hooked the bottoms of the tanks to the waist D rings first, then hooked the valves on with the bungee.
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Postby barcelonacvr » Jun 28, 2006 7:26 pm

Squirrel Girl wrote:Eramosa... I moved these posts out of the Cave Suit thread and over to it's own in Cave Diving. Will finish responding to your detailed post when I get more time. Yep, crotch strap seems important! :grin:

I will say that Cindy tried to teach me sidemounting with my new Transpac and newer sidemount kit. She thinks it's a problem with DR's stuff that it doesn't work well with women's shapes. She didn't find the Armadillo to work well, either, though I've heard others rave about them.

She hooked the bottoms of the tanks to the waist D rings first, then hooked the valves on with the bungee.



Stick with Cindy's ideas.She knows more than I will ever know!! Great lady to boot!! (edit) Make that both of you know more than I ever will. :woohoo:

I pme'd you the Duncan Price comparison
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Postby kelly » Jun 29, 2006 5:27 am

Squirrel Girl wrote:. She thinks it's a problem with DR's stuff that it doesn't work well with women's shapes.


I have yet to find a sidemount rig that "out of the box" will work well. I 've used the Diverite Transpac for a couple years and have been very pleased,but it needed a lot of tweaking to make it work. I know several women who use this configuration very well,but they too needed to experiment with strap lengths,wing placement etc before they got exactly what they wanted.
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Postby DeWayne » Jun 29, 2006 10:53 am

Last I heard, Mike M still had his Dragon harness up for sale (the one posted on CDF), you might want to check with him if you are interested in one as he was offering it at a decent price (I was all set to buy it until I saw Doug put his Farr harness up for sale at a price that I just could not pass on.) I have a copy of Duncan's comparison between the Dragon and Martyn's harness here somewhere; he did a great comparison noting the strengths and weaknesses of both setups. I have come to love the Farr harness that I bought from Doug and the fact that he sold it at such a low price is just icing on the cake. I think the Transpac set up is more suited to someone who wants to tinker around and make use of the components to construct a harness to their own liking (seems like every set up that the owner truly likes is totally different from any others; you play around with it and modify things until it feels right to you.) If you would like to try out the Farr harness Barbara, give me a shout and I could loan it to you for a bit. As for grommets, I have been getting SS grommets through McMaster Carr at a very good price.
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Postby barcelonacvr » Jul 1, 2006 8:04 am

Dewayne:

Thanks for adding your informed opinion!I hoped you would come along.I thought it was Mike selling a dragon ,thanks for the confirmation.

I am happy you really like the harness,I found it to be soooo streamline.I am glad you liked the price as well,I would rather see a fellow cave diver use it for what it was meant for as opposed to collection dust here ( My friend got an even better deal of free for my other one though :tonguecheek: )I will vicariously enjoy the travels of the harness through your photos,dive safe and have fun my friend!

It would be great if Barbara could actually try both types ,I took a chance with ordering but Duncan certainly helped immensely with his "cave diver consumer report",the ladies certainly have more interesting "topography" to work around with the harness so actual test driving would probably be very beneficial. Very Nice to see great cave divers helping and supporting one another!!

Maybe one day if I can get * insert diety of choice here* to honor the warranty on the brain container I walk around in I will have the pleasure of plowing through mud banks with you!!In the meantime I will enjoy the great sump reports your groups puts out.

Dive safe

Doug
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Postby Squirrel Girl » Jul 1, 2006 5:44 pm

Hi guys, sorry to be slow about responding to you. At work, I often scan the web pages. And if I can fire off a posting that doesn't require a lot of thought, I do so. Then if I have to "think," I put it off until I have time. I haven't had much lately.

I had to go to a bike shop on Friday (I need my bikes in working order to get some modicum of regular exercise). I bopped into the nearby Dive Shop and bought a few pieces of hardware. $25. I need some more hardware, but not much. I was wondering if any of the Farr Harness uses stiff webbing like Dive Rite does. I have all kinds of regular 2" and 1" webbing from assorted climbing harnesses I've made in the past.
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Postby barcelonacvr » Jul 2, 2006 6:28 pm

Squirrel Girl wrote:Hi guys, sorry to be slow about responding to you. At work, I often scan the web pages. And if I can fire off a posting that doesn't require a lot of thought, I do so. Then if I have to "think," I put it off until I have time. I haven't had much lately.

I had to go to a bike shop on Friday (I need my bikes in working order to get some modicum of regular exercise). I bopped into the nearby Dive Shop and bought a few pieces of hardware. $25. I need some more hardware, but not much. I was wondering if any of the Farr Harness uses stiff webbing like Dive Rite does. I have all kinds of regular 2" and 1" webbing from assorted climbing harnesses I've made in the past.


Barbara: The webbing on the Farr is I think "slightly" softer than the dive rite but I haven't had a diverite in my hands in years. I personally do not like soft webbing as i find it sloppy.
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Postby Squirrel Girl » Jul 2, 2006 7:38 pm

eramosakarst wrote:The webbing on the Farr is I think "slightly" softer than the dive rite but I haven't had a diverite in my hands in years. I personally do not like soft webbing as i find it sloppy.
Yeah, climbing harni are soft webbing, but I think the stiff stuff seems better suited to the diving realm, but I'm new to making diving harni.

Thanks!
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Postby DeWayne » Jul 5, 2006 11:07 am

The webbing [on the Farr harness] is a bit softer than the current DR stock, but not by much. It seems to be a bit stouter (thicker?) as well; it sort of reminds me of my old Yates harnesses from years ago when I was still climbing, supple enough to be comfortable but yet stout enough to be extremely reliable. I like the Farr for its simplicity of design while still being stremely comfortable to wear. The offer stands Barbara, any time you want to check it out just give me a shout and I will be happy to loan it you for a few days.
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Postby Squirrel Girl » Jul 5, 2006 10:02 pm

Hey DeWayne, I appreciate the offer! Right now I don't have any tanks, so it won't go me much good. I'm trying to pay off my credit cards right now. When I get that under control a little better (like paying off my airticket and registration for Bellingham), I'll get back to making headway with this cave diving business!

Thanks!
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