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STAGE BOTTLE RIGGING:
Using the Luxfer aluminum 80, loop a doubles 3/16" nylon line over the neck
of the bottle, tie a 3" stainless steel bolt snap high on the neck, run the
double line through a piece of hose for an UNDERWATER ONLY handle, underneath
the bridge of a stainless steel hose clamp cut exactly to the diameter of the
bottle, and then tie on the other stainless bolt snap leaving about four inches
of play in the line. To tighten this up (reduce the slack) , loop the clip back
under the handle, to loosen, pull it back out. Curt a piece of innertube and
slide it over the tank so as to cover the hose clamp and to use as a storage
for
the reg hose. The reg should have a small bolt snap on near the second stage to
clip off to the line from the handle on the bottle so the reg does not fall out
and catch something. Stage bottle regs should always be stowed and the bottle
turned off unless breathing it - anything else is sloppy behavior, like
buttmounting only with a regulator. The reg need have a hose only long enough
to
make it around you head and into your mouth, so that will be different for a
MK15 than for a Poseiden by about four inches, for example. The high pressure
hose should be a shortie, and can be folded back with a rubber band to point
the
pressure guage towards you as it is banded to the first stage. They will not
break - I have never broken one, ever.
The bottle must be a luxfer 80, or the Catalina that has the same buoyancy
characteristics : neg 3 lbs full, pos 3 lbs empty. Anything else is abject
strokery - too heavy, and only a stroke would use buoyancy tubes. This applies
to American tanks only - I have no idea what the equivalent British tanks are.
For oecean deco bottles, the Luxfer al 40 is the best for all gases. For a
tough
guy , like me, the al 30 is the choice for oxygen. Bottles should have the MOD
painted on the sides so everyone can see what your are breathing.
For the WKPP guys - stop picking my bottles up by the handles. Rig the
stages so anyone can use them. You all know you can all use mine easily, but I
need double enders to use some of yours. Lose the hardware snaps, and the
non-stainless stuff. Brass bolt snaps will cut your thumb, and the suicide
clips
are too iffy, and a no no for wreck diving. They take prisoners, and they get
easily clipped inside each other. We all know this, we just forget. With my
rig,
I only need one d ring on each chest, and one on the left hip, no matter how
many bottles I carry. JJ, Casey and I did a five stage and pulled all of our
own
stuff, and I picked mine up with a runaway scooter. When you can do that,
your bottles are rigged properly. If it takes nore than 15 seconds to change
bottles, they are fubared.
On Sat, 17 Feb 1996, "John Purnell" <jp@ia*.co*> wrote:
>George
>The one aspect that is not covered in the video and has not been
>discussed on the net in the 5 months I've been on is stage bottles.
>Specifically what tanks are best for staging and deco and how do you
>rig them.
>
>I would like to thank you for the valuable information you have
>posted. I've made enough mistakes in the past and bought enough
>crap that it's good to know that in the future I'll be able to make
>informed decisions instead of some instructor trying to make a $.
>
>
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