Side mounted cylinder?

Simon Beck

Member
Any ideas on the best way to side mount a pony cylinder?....my idea involved attaching the lower half of bottle(webbing/elastic rope...god knows) to belt with carabiner, then using a shoulder sling/harness attach top of bottle( area at top just under valve again using crab......but! there're obviously folk out there who've done this before so any ideas would be most appreciated.
 
M

MSD

Guest
The old-fashioned way of doing this is to have a bottle band about 2/3 of the way up the cylinder. The band is then attached to a diving waistbelt with shoulder straps. Lead weights can be conveniently placed on the belt. If you want to go really lightweight, just use a belay belt, but you will need to find some way of stopping everything sliding around, with the bottle ending up in between your legs, which is none too convenient. What you want is to have the tap under your armpit.

The more modern way is to have two attachment points. You have a bottle band about 1/3 of the way up the cylinder with an integral krab. You then clip this to a loop on your waist belt, Then you have some kind of chest harness with a piece of shock cord at shoulder height which you hook over the tap. In this configuration the bottle sits a bit higher. The main advantage of this confirguration is that you can take the bottle on and off easily which makes kitting up in a restricted space easier.

To make a bottle band, take four large jubilee clips. strighten them out a bit and put them "back to back" in pairs, threaded through one or two mailllon rapides. Place the entire construction over the tank and tighten up the jubliee clips. Now you can thread a belt (or clip a crab) to the maillon. It helps if you put a bit of inner tube on the tank first as you get a better grip and don't shag the paint of the cyclinder....although if you take a cylinder caving the paint is going to get knackered anyway.

Mark
 

nickwilliams

Well-known member
Simon Beck said:
Any ideas on the best way to side mount a pony cylinder?....my idea involved attaching the lower half of bottle(webbing/elastic rope...god knows) to belt with carabiner, then using a shoulder sling/harness attach top of bottle( area at top just under valve again using crab......but! there're obviously folk out there who've done this before so any ideas would be most appreciated.

I ain't any kind of diver (steady, Pitlamp!) but I have seen this done by holding two 7mm long series maillions under two long jubilee clips which go right round the bottle, and then passing a belt through the maillions. But things may have got shiner in the cave diving world since I spent much time being abused by diving types, so maybe this idea is no longer a good one.

Nick.
 

Pitlamp

Well-known member
"abused"??! Now there's gratitude! Then again, you did provide one of the most entertaining scenes I've ever witnessed. How I didn't drown with laughing I'll never know!

Serious note now: Simon - JOIN THE CDG and do it properly. The earliest stages of a cave diver's career are statistically the most dangerous by far. If you invest time in learning the skills properly (and take a long term view of the payback in terms of discoveries), you will never regret it.

If I don't see you beforehand, let's have a natter in the GG beer tent this summer. Or you can contact the CDG Northern Secretary via the CDG website and find out about future meetings.
 
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