Harness plates

[Duncan Price]

The type harness used by the brittish cave diving group. I have a set of plates made by Kent Tooling. I have added "handles" to the butt plate. Just add some webbing and a few D rings you'll have a great sump harness. Also has a small wing. Free to a good home. Friends get first shot.

I'm not aware of anyone in the CDG using this type of rig. The harness of choice is either the Dragon (now made by Beast Products) or the Farr or Warmbac ones. The plate set up and webbing layout looks very interesting (a bit like the Razor harness) and the cost of the whole rig much less than the harness's mentioned above.

It looks compact also - which is useful when caving although it would need a separate belt to add any necessary weight especially when diving dry.

Duncan

[FW]

I'm not aware of anyone in the CDG using this type of rig. The harness of choice is either the Dragon (now made by Beast Products) or the Farr or Warmbac ones. The plate set up and webbing layout looks very interesting (a bit like the Razor harness) and the cost of the whole rig much less than the harness's mentioned above.

It looks compact also - which is useful when caving although it would need a separate belt to add any necessary weight especially when diving dry.

Duncan

He meant the general shape, and concept are the same, not necessarily the way the harness is assembled.

[Duncan Price]

He meant the general shape, and concept are the same, not necessarily the way the harness is assembled.

No-one uses metal plates - just an all-webbing construction. The late Roberta Swicegood wrote an article on the predecessor of the plate design (using a hinged backplate) which appeared in the CDG Newsletter 20-odd years ago. The current British config gained popularity from about 1993 onwards mainly as a result of Peter Bolt's Lechiguilla (spelling) dive - he copied Tom Morris's rig. I understand that this set-up was copied from Canadian divers and is based upon Mike Boon's original 1960's sidemount set up which was exported by him from the UK to Canada when he moved there.

[Wizard]

lookie here: www.darkside-diving.co.uk

Sweet! Good price on the plates.
I like the bullet weights and the helmet latch setup for a light also. Nice stuff they have there.

[Greenwood_60]

Sweet! Good price on the plates.

They are nice plates too. The metal is a little thinner than the bonediver plates, but not by much. The international shipping was pretty cheap as well, and delivery was within a week.

[Skorpiov]

SO Greenwood... How many sidemount harnesses does one person need?

[Greenwood_60]

That's kind of like asking how many tanks does one diver need.

Need, one. Want, two... each. I have mine, Giselle is getting this one for Christmas (to complement the SMS100 wing she got for her birthday). I am also building 2 more (1 for each of us) for "lighter" diving, i.e. single tank sidemount, or double aluminum/MSR bag diving off a Kayak. Those will be based around the square and triangle rings. I am learning with each build. It gives me a chance to try many different configurations. I am definitely enjoying the process.

[Wizard]

You know you have a closet full of SM rigs when you can say "I've got more SM rigs than Forrest has had rebreather floods". LMAO!!!
Reading that post about Forrest and his floods still cracks me up.

[caves4me]

No-one uses metal plates - just an all-webbing construction. The late Roberta Swicegood wrote an article on the predecessor of the plate design (using a hinged backplate) which appeared in the CDG Newsletter 20-odd years ago. The current British config gained popularity from about 1993 onwards mainly as a result of Peter Bolt's Lechiguilla (spelling) dive - he copied Tom Morris's rig. I understand that this set-up was copied from Canadian divers and is based upon Mike Boon's original 1960's sidemount set up which was exported by him from the UK to Canada when he moved there.

Thanks Duncan for the information, it was deeply appreciated!

Barry