I wanted to pass on a big public THANK YOU to Ben McGeever; we attended the Dive-Xtras scooter repair class this last week at the factory in Mukilteo, Washington (this is about 20 minutes north of Seattle).
Rarely have I had such a great experience, learning so much with so many laughs. Ben pretty much gave up two days of production for no apparent return that I could see, besides the questionable value of having us know how to troubleshoot, repair and/or rebuild an X with our eyes closed.
I had posted this elsewhere, but, theres lots of scooter interest here on Scubaboard; I hope someone can get something valuable out of this.
For those that haven't heard about the X-Scooter repair course, here's a brief report:
Five of us (all X drivers) from Reno made arrangements to attend the two-day class. We flew up to SEA the day before, arriving early enough to get in a tour at the Boeing plant. Janet and I are...well... wingnuts.... so this was a treat. We then checked in to the Silver Cloud Inn in Mukilteo, a fantastic hotel, and I'd highly recommended it if you attend the class.
This is literally the view from the hotel (nice, eh?):
The next morning was the first day of the class. We arrived at 9:00 and Ben fed us coffee "elixir of life!" and gave us a brief tour. We were given our toolkits (you get to keep these, they contain every tool needed to assemble an X) and started by assembling noses. What was very cool was that Ben would tell us why each part was designed a particular way, or how it functioned, as we assembled it. So it was way more than a "follow the numbers" assembly, you were learning about the scooter as you went. Eventually we each would build two complete scooters.
Lunch was at a local brew pub with excellent pizza. Ben bought, a very nice gesture, and we resolved that we wouldn't let him pay for another meal while we were there.
After lunch we moved on to assembly of tails.
Whew. There is certainly a lot to be learned, and I became more impressed with the X as every piece went in. As in the morning, Ben would pass on all sorts of nuggets of assembly wisdom as we went.
Even the particularly confusing assembly of the clutch stack was entertaining! The smiling guy in the background is Ted, the Dive-Xtras assembler/floor sweeper/bottle washer, who was truly a pleasure to meet and hang out with.
Throughout the class, Ben had paused the production of X scooters so wed have some peace and quiet. Wed break every now and then to get knowed up on the production of X-scooter parts. Everything is made in-house, and we got to see how a $100 chunk of aluminum billet was turned into a X-scooter tail.
First wed see the production sequence
Then wed put some more parts together
The explanation (very deep) on how the chunk gets whittled down
And we saw tails emerge from the blank metal!
What was a bonus was that Ben was very patient, when folks werent comfortable or skilled with a particular task, hed work with them until they were comfortable as can be, like soldering skillz.
At this point we called it a day, it was about 6:00 PM, and had seemed like it had flown by. We adjourned to the restaurant next to the hotel, Ivars, excellent seafood, where Bens wife joined us. Luckily, the hotel was close enough that we could crawl back to our room.
The next day we discovered that our scooter cases are good for more than flying scooters around! We spent the early morning vacuum testing the scooters wed made (they all passed), water testing them for 40 minutes each in the test tank (all dry), and generally doing QC.
Along the way, we disassembled batteries, motors, worked through diagnostics, and generally finished up anything we hadnt done the day before. We also became acquainted with the Gavin, Zuexo and Farrallon scooters with hands-on disassembly and poking and prodding. Ben was drawing engineering diagrams to explain the finer points of shaft seal design, and actually made some difficult concepts easy for my pea brain to grasp. By this time I dont feel bashful admitting that said pea brain was quite full!
Time flew by so fast we didnt get to lunch until 2:30. Wow!
After lunch, it was free time so to speak, we had brought our scooters to work on. Janet and I replaced our handle V-shims, and one of our friends rebuilt his original Echo model into the new Sierra model, right down to new propellers and a vacuum test. What was cool was how easy it was a week before we would have been clueless, and now we just chatted and joked as we did something routine.
All too soon it was 6:00 and time for us to head off to SeaTac to fly home.
Was it worth it? Well, Janet and I figure we spent about $1000 between airfare, food, lodging and car rental. This was far more than the actual cost of the class -the cost of the tools. The value of the knowledge we gained was worth double what we spent, and I feel as if I really was on the bargain end. It is very comforting to know we wont end up with a wrecked trip because of a broken scooter, and, its nice to know just whats what in the inside of my scooter.
As I said before: Ben, saying a mere Thank You isnt enough. He opened up the factory to us, took the time to make sure we truly understood what we were doing, and made us better divers because of it. It wouldnt be out of line to say that this is a reflection of how Dive-Xtras does business, too. Wow!
If you are a X owner, I would strongly suggest making the time to attend one of these classes. You wont regret it!
All the best, James
PS just to prove I really was there doing stuff !
And lastly thanks Ted!
Rarely have I had such a great experience, learning so much with so many laughs. Ben pretty much gave up two days of production for no apparent return that I could see, besides the questionable value of having us know how to troubleshoot, repair and/or rebuild an X with our eyes closed.
I had posted this elsewhere, but, theres lots of scooter interest here on Scubaboard; I hope someone can get something valuable out of this.
For those that haven't heard about the X-Scooter repair course, here's a brief report:
Five of us (all X drivers) from Reno made arrangements to attend the two-day class. We flew up to SEA the day before, arriving early enough to get in a tour at the Boeing plant. Janet and I are...well... wingnuts.... so this was a treat. We then checked in to the Silver Cloud Inn in Mukilteo, a fantastic hotel, and I'd highly recommended it if you attend the class.
This is literally the view from the hotel (nice, eh?):
The next morning was the first day of the class. We arrived at 9:00 and Ben fed us coffee "elixir of life!" and gave us a brief tour. We were given our toolkits (you get to keep these, they contain every tool needed to assemble an X) and started by assembling noses. What was very cool was that Ben would tell us why each part was designed a particular way, or how it functioned, as we assembled it. So it was way more than a "follow the numbers" assembly, you were learning about the scooter as you went. Eventually we each would build two complete scooters.
Lunch was at a local brew pub with excellent pizza. Ben bought, a very nice gesture, and we resolved that we wouldn't let him pay for another meal while we were there.
After lunch we moved on to assembly of tails.
Whew. There is certainly a lot to be learned, and I became more impressed with the X as every piece went in. As in the morning, Ben would pass on all sorts of nuggets of assembly wisdom as we went.
Even the particularly confusing assembly of the clutch stack was entertaining! The smiling guy in the background is Ted, the Dive-Xtras assembler/floor sweeper/bottle washer, who was truly a pleasure to meet and hang out with.
Throughout the class, Ben had paused the production of X scooters so wed have some peace and quiet. Wed break every now and then to get knowed up on the production of X-scooter parts. Everything is made in-house, and we got to see how a $100 chunk of aluminum billet was turned into a X-scooter tail.
First wed see the production sequence
Then wed put some more parts together
The explanation (very deep) on how the chunk gets whittled down
And we saw tails emerge from the blank metal!
What was a bonus was that Ben was very patient, when folks werent comfortable or skilled with a particular task, hed work with them until they were comfortable as can be, like soldering skillz.
At this point we called it a day, it was about 6:00 PM, and had seemed like it had flown by. We adjourned to the restaurant next to the hotel, Ivars, excellent seafood, where Bens wife joined us. Luckily, the hotel was close enough that we could crawl back to our room.
The next day we discovered that our scooter cases are good for more than flying scooters around! We spent the early morning vacuum testing the scooters wed made (they all passed), water testing them for 40 minutes each in the test tank (all dry), and generally doing QC.
Along the way, we disassembled batteries, motors, worked through diagnostics, and generally finished up anything we hadnt done the day before. We also became acquainted with the Gavin, Zuexo and Farrallon scooters with hands-on disassembly and poking and prodding. Ben was drawing engineering diagrams to explain the finer points of shaft seal design, and actually made some difficult concepts easy for my pea brain to grasp. By this time I dont feel bashful admitting that said pea brain was quite full!
Time flew by so fast we didnt get to lunch until 2:30. Wow!
After lunch, it was free time so to speak, we had brought our scooters to work on. Janet and I replaced our handle V-shims, and one of our friends rebuilt his original Echo model into the new Sierra model, right down to new propellers and a vacuum test. What was cool was how easy it was a week before we would have been clueless, and now we just chatted and joked as we did something routine.
All too soon it was 6:00 and time for us to head off to SeaTac to fly home.
Was it worth it? Well, Janet and I figure we spent about $1000 between airfare, food, lodging and car rental. This was far more than the actual cost of the class -the cost of the tools. The value of the knowledge we gained was worth double what we spent, and I feel as if I really was on the bargain end. It is very comforting to know we wont end up with a wrecked trip because of a broken scooter, and, its nice to know just whats what in the inside of my scooter.
As I said before: Ben, saying a mere Thank You isnt enough. He opened up the factory to us, took the time to make sure we truly understood what we were doing, and made us better divers because of it. It wouldnt be out of line to say that this is a reflection of how Dive-Xtras does business, too. Wow!
If you are a X owner, I would strongly suggest making the time to attend one of these classes. You wont regret it!
All the best, James
PS just to prove I really was there doing stuff !
And lastly thanks Ted!
