How to make a sidemount at home?

[stairman]

I dont even like doing stage bottles like that anymore. It will work, clip the bottle to upper and lower d rings and start swimming but it bounces and hangs down too low. A much simpler way to rig stages and way better is to make a 6 inch loop out of 3/8 bungee and add a boltsnap to it, then secure it to the neck of the tank. Then pull up from the bottom 15 inches and secure another 6 inch bungee loop with boltsnap under a radiator type clamp. You can then pull th boltsnaps to connect and it holds snug to your side. This is how sidemounters like myself carry stages outside of sidemount tanks. How do I rig my sidemount tanks? glad you asked[in case anyone does] I have a hogring on each tankneck, installed while valve is off, and a double ender connecting there to my upper d ring. At the bottom I have 2 radiator clamps that hold a large quicklink that has a large boltsnap connected to it and it clips off to a DR buttplates door handles. If clipping ff the bottom is a big pain due to having short arms, a big butt or not being too flexible, a short bungee could be added there as well, like the stage rigging I described, so it can be pulled to clip off and still be snug to your sides. On my sidemount tanks, the clamps are way lower on the tank bottoms than on the stages, so more of the tank rides up improving trim.

 

[DevonDiver]

Dammit it is still there. Whoever is watching that page has their head up their ass. People, who know what they are talking about, keep deleting that picture and the stupid person who is watching the page keeps reverting the picture to the backmount diver with deco bottles.

I've just made some changes and additions to the wiki site. If the 'mystery watcher' edits them, I'll make a complaint to Wikipedia.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

Guys, if you look at the link he found that was what he wanted you'll see he was not looking for sidemount. He was looking for stage bottle rigging.

Jim, That's been evident since post #2 where the OP whined and responded to his own question - making it clear he had not even asked the right question in the first place.

 

[DevonDiver]

Jim, That's been evident since post #2 where the OP whined and responded to his own question - making it clear he had not even asked the right question in the first place.

Maybe he asked the right question, but found the wrong answer for himself, and never returned to learn that? LOL

 

[beanojones]

I dont even like doing stage bottles like that anymore. It will work, clip the bottle to upper and lower d rings and start swimming but it bounces and hangs down too low. A much simpler way to rig stages and way better is to make a 6 inch loop out of 3/8 bungee and add a boltsnap to it, then secure it to the neck of the tank. Then pull up from the bottom 15 inches and secure another 6 inch bungee loop with boltsnap under a radiator type clamp. You can then pull th boltsnaps to connect and it holds snug to your side. This is how sidemounters like myself carry stages outside of sidemount tanks.

Exactly!

One of the things Sidemount has done, is given people 'slinging' a tank lots of ways to not have their tanks 'slinging' around anymore.

---------- Post Merged at 09:05 AM ---------- Previous Post was at 08:56 AM ----------

I've just made some changes and additions to the wiki site. If the 'mystery watcher' edits them, I'll make a complaint to Wikipedia.

"What Is and Isn't Sidemount Diving"

I'll assume that is yours, since it was not there a bit ago. That is awesome; that is exactly what the article needed. Step by step ways of saying this is sidemount, this is not. While something looks kinda like sidemount, that's not sidemount, but this other thing is. While recognizing that sidemount mounting techniques can make 'slinging' stages/deco tanks much much cleaner, as 'stairman' noted above.

And some people just don't care about trim, and just dive two stage-rigged bottles slung, without bungies, in a imitation of sidemount, that is not really taking advantage of what sidemounters are in the process of sharing ideas about. Nothing wrong with doing it that way, it is just not really sidemount, nor is it taking advantage of what the sidemount community has learned, through trial and error, abut how to make a bottle ride well.
.....
Just re-read the whole article, and man it is much, much better, and actually worth pointing someone to for background. The version from just a few hours ago was a mess, with a lot of the false bravado 'I read about it on the internet, so I am an expert' mess we get in scuba stuff on the internet, mixed in along with some basic factual mistakes to make it all worse.

A big thanks for the massive improvements!

 

[The Chairman]

Everyone sidemounts for different reasons. Ergo, there are a lot of differing opinions about what constitutes sidemount and what does not. Having your primary cylinder in a back mounted configuration is definitely NOT sidemount. After that, what constitutes sidemounting gets awful fuzzy. I like it like that.

 

[JamesK]

Side mount is not front mount.

 

[beanojones]

And the heading

"What is and what is not Sidemount" has been edited out of the Wikipedia article.

At least the slung deco bottle picture has not been added back (yet).

 

[DA Aquamaster]

I dont even like doing stage bottles like that anymore. It will work, clip the bottle to upper and lower d rings and start swimming but it bounces and hangs down too low. A much simpler way to rig stages and way better is to make a 6 inch loop out of 3/8 bungee and add a boltsnap to it, then secure it to the neck of the tank. Then pull up from the bottom 15 inches and secure another 6 inch bungee loop with boltsnap under a radiator type clamp. You can then pull th boltsnaps to connect and it holds snug to your side. This is how sidemounters like myself carry stages outside of sidemount tanks.

Most people I encounter tend to call that "Edd Sorenson" sidemount stage rigging.

I had the pleasure of diving with some wonderful people in MX last year and one thing i noted was the difference in profiles that develops due to how the stage is carried. With a back mount cave diver, even with a very clean configuration, a single stage hangs vertically and very low in the water column, creating a very "deep" profile where the stage is also fully exposed in terms of frontal area and drag.

In contrast, if you use the Edd Sorenson bungee rig for your stages in a sidemount configuration, the resulting profile is much wider, but much shallower, and the stage stays tucked in more behind your arm and on top of your sidemount tank with less frontal area.

The only things I have with a hog style stage rig anymore are my smaller deco bottles that get left in or just past the cavern zone.

 

[tracydr]

It does not help that the wikipedia article had a backmount diver with deco bottles on the sidemount page for several years.

Like it or not Wikipedia is where the world turns for overview type info on everything.

Sidemount - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dammit it is still there. Whoever is watching that page has their head up their ass. People, who know what they are talking about, keep deleting that picture and the stupid person who is watching the page keeps reverting the picture to the backmount diver with deco bottles.

Doesn't seem to be there now. What's up with the picture of the guy on his back needing help to get up after donning his rig, though?
shoot, after reading Wikipedia, I'm all trained. Who needs the course?