I made this because I really like the shape of the razor bladder. It is IMO the right shape for sidemount. What I didn't like about the full Razor harness was the way the shoulder straps were ran. I also am partial to high seas hardware, I had changed all the d rings on my last harness to that style. The cost of the diy part of the harness was not very much and I was able to create exactly what I wanted. I bought a big roll of webbing from leisure pro. I bought the hardware I needed from dive gear express.
My buddy has a heavy duty sewing machine so we can just about make anything. I have a small milling machine so I even made my own aluminum plates for the webbing at the shoulders.
The butt plate came to be as I found when I had it configured somewhat similar to the actual razor I had a hard time clipping on the tanks to the waist band. I was having a hard time bare handed and I knew right away this would never work with dry gloves. I always dive dry so that setup was not an option for me.
To construct the butt plate I cut a plastic insert out of 2'x4' translucent fluorescent light panels available at Lowes, HD, etc. They are fairly rigid but do not snap when bent. Then I cut out two pieces of cordura, sewed custom made pockets to one side, then sewed the whole thing together. I have made other things with this method and it is easy and costs next to nothing if you have access to a heavy duty sewing machine. My buddies is from Sailrite and I think he has about $1000 into his setup.
I only have one dive on the current configuration in a pool. I am diving it again on Tuesday with my drysuit. I will post some video of that dive. So far so good. I did have to change the way the lower connection of the bladder was attached and I am still tweaking that a bit.
Here's a couple more pics of me wearing it.
Stano
