1st Back Plate Disappointment

[Inazuma zoomer]

Bear in mind that at the end, what will provide all the support while diving is the belt/crotch strap... that's where the magic happens...love my backplate... your's looks perfectly normal....​

That leads me to another point…

The belt sits across my diaphragm, I need to use the crotch strap to pull it down. This in turn kinks the belt strap down, similar to the shoulder strap. That in turn pulls the plate down so I can barely touch it with my fingertips.

After all the hype, can’t say I’m that impressed tbh.

 

[Inazuma zoomer]

I agree with this.

The shoulder straps are there to prevent it from sliding left and right. The waist strap and crotch strap are there to hold it from moving up and down.

If the shoulder straps were tight enough to be snug on you while in the water, they’d be too small for you to get in or out of them. They have to be loose enough for you to get the rig on and off while seated on a boat bench, with huge dry glove cuffs. That isn’t that big, but there has to be a certain amount of length, and it will be more than you would need to hold it on your shoulders once it’s on.

Unlike most backpacks, these straps are not adjustable once you have them on, so you can’t tighten them when you’re done. So you’ll have to aim for that happy medium: as tight as reasonably possible while still being able to get into them. You will know if they are too loose if when you are in the water you tip to the side and the tanks shift on your back at your shoulders. If they do, you need to tighten your straps.

One other tip: make sure your waist strap is tight. And often, that means re-tightening your waist strap after you get in the water. Once the water compresses everything a bit, things shift around somewhat, etc., your waist strap will be too loose. That means everything will shift at that point. I make it part of my in-the-water beginning-of-dive process to just give my waist strap a bit of a tighten. Works for me.

ETA: I found out the hard way the role of straps in my advanced wreck class. There is a tricky hole the instructor takes students through which requires you to go completely sideways in order to get in through the hole: you and your tanks are now next to each other relative to gravity, and the tanks can slide much more easily. I couldn’t do it, because my tanks would shift just enough to be able to prevent me from wiggling through. I had previously had the straps adjusted for my dry suit, but was in my wetsuit for this dive, so they were literally like an inch or two longer than they should have been. My instructor also pointed out that if I had tightened my waistband at that point, I might have been able to secure things enough to make it through that hole. Like most things in advanced diving, the difference between success and failure often comes down to small details in the margins.

As for wear on the straps: I disagree with people who say it’ll take 1000 dives before you wear into the strap. Maybe I just have poorly manufactured plates, but I have multiple plates, and and all of them will begin to wear into the strap after mid double digit dives. I have two suggestions for that:

One, I use a piece of mountain bike tubing over top the strap in the areas where it goes through the plate. Something like 6 inches of tubing for each of the shoulder spots and a little less for each of the waist spots. it also helps to hold everything in place a bit. Of course, you will wear through the mountain bike tubing, but you just replace it before it begins to wear into the strap.

Two, make peace with your strap getting worn. After you replace the bicycle tubing a couple of times, you’re likely to get lazy because you just don’t want to be bothered with restringing a harness again. In which case, your straps will get chewed up. Oh well. Somewhere well north of 100 dives you’ll need to replace the strap. Again, oh well: the best strap in my opinion is the Halcyon webbing, so it’ll cost you something like 30 bucks to replace the shoulder webbing. So it’s like 30 cents a dive. I’ve made peace with it.

ETA2: anyone got a source for generic webbing that matches the supple/stiff characteristics of the Halcyon webbing? My cheapskate heart loves the idea of buying the webbing for less money, but I’d even buy it for the same price so that I didn’t look like a walking billboard with all those H’s on it. (having said that, I actually do find the H’s useful: they let me know if my waist strap is twisted, and it makes lining things up on the harness very quick and easy. I just hate looking like an advertisement.)

Great reply - thanks

But again, it seems it’s ‘just how it is’.
As you say, it’s the “small details”. So why ‘we’ put up with it, when it could be better, with not a lot more input?

 

[Inazuma zoomer]

Here’s a couple of photos to give you an idea about the mountain bike tubing.

View attachment 845346

Here you see the left shoulder from the front. You can see I’ve put the mountain bike tubing over the strap. You can also see that the mountain bike tubing has been worn through, as well as the strap. This is also generic stiff webbing which is not my favorite. I’ve basically decided I’m going to use it till it’s too worn and replace it with Halcyon webbing.

View attachment 845348

Here is the same shoulder corner but from the backside. You can see that I cut the mountain bike tubing a little short. There’s no real reason not to have each end of that mountain bike tubing extend for about an inch farther at both ends. From memory, that ends up being six or so inches of tubing.

This was the first time I had tried the mountain bike tubing trick. It actually worked quite well, but I decided that prolonging the life of webbing I don’t actually like was somewhat counterproductive…

View attachment 845351

Here is my antique Halcyon stainless plate with actual Halcyon webbing. This was the second time I did this, and you’ll notice I made the tubing longer. As you can see, that one hotspot has started to wear through the mountain bike tubing. This is about the time I should replace it if I want to keep the webbing pristine. And this is the point when I realized that I’m too lazy to restring this to extend the life of a $30 piece of webbing… Really, there probably is still some time before I start to do damage to the strap. If I have a reason to do some maintenance on that rig, I’ll replace the mountain bike tubing. But I’m not going to do it just for that.

So I guess that, while I am certainly a cheapskate, I’m actually more lazy than cheap. (Reason #735 I don’t dive a rebreather.)

Perfect… shows my concerns are justified, if negligible.

Is the H webbing that much better? I was expecting seat belt type, but mine’s so stiff I can barely pinch two edges together.

 

[tmassey]

Great reply - thanks

But again, it seems it’s ‘just how it is’.
As you say, it’s the “small details”. So why ‘we’ put up with it, when it could be better, with not a lot more input?

Oh, boy… You are not going to like my answer for this.

Im my experience, I have found that it’s usually the user’s preconceived expectations both as a scuba diver and as a land-based creature that often lead away from what actually is the optimal solution.

For example, you mentioned something about your golf bag being much more ergonomic than your back plate and harness. Well… Your golf bag is not designed to be used underwater. Conversely, believe it or not, your back plate and harness are not designed to be used on land!

No one will argue that a backplate and harness is both uncomfortable and inconvenient on land. But seeing as it’s on-land use makes up 0.3% of its total use, it’s not optimized for that. . It’s optimized for functioning in the water, where most of the weight is being carried by the water, not by your body. It’s purpose is to hold everything in place from movement, not to support weight.

This is extremely common from new scuba divers, and even experienced scuba divers new to technical gear. It does not work in a way that is intuitive for such people. It really does take some experience and possibly some mentoring to really understand how to work with it.

Take, for example, your observation that a misconfigured harness will make getting to your valves more difficult. That’s very true. But the problem is not with the concept, or even the particular hardware that you have at your disposal. The problem is the way it has been set up relative to your body and geometry. Unless you are an highly-unusually shaped person, it can be made to work where everything is positioned right where it’s supposed to be. There are people who are 5 foot 4 and people who are 6 foot 4 and use the same equipment, and can configure it to work properly. The same as true for 130 pound and 330 pound people. (ETA: Not the same equipment without change. In other words, each of those people can configure the same model of backplate with the same type of harness to work correctly for them. You aren’t going to be able to move a backplate and harness from one of those people to the other without reconfiguring it, but the same equipment could be made to work for any of them.)

You are very correct to observe that misconfigured equipment will not work well for you. However, it’s rarely the fault of the fundamental design of the equipment.

I can’t tell you how much tech gear I have bought from people who sold it to me cheap saying, “this stuff is garbage: it works terribly and I don’t understand why anyone would want to use it.” I’m grateful for such people: I get equipment cheap that way.

It always surprises me, though, that nobody ever asks the opposite question: “how come a great deal of very experienced divers can dive successfully with this equipment, and I can’t? In fact, they *choose* to dive with that equipment. Why?” When a person reflects upon that a bit, it might lead one to question some of the preconceived ideas and assumptions that they have made as part of that process. After all, some of those experienced divers are also very intelligent as well as talented designers. Is it that they can’t see the problems you see? Or is it that they don’t experience those same problems because they approach the solution from a different direction?

Back plate and wing configurations rarely work out of the box, and will almost always require a number of dives to begin to understand the concept. Like I said, a mentor can go along way in accelerating that process, but even without that, it can be done on your own. but it demands a different style of thinking and a different style of diving. That’s why people use it: to facilitate those differences. It’s not for everyone.

In the end, there’s absolutely no requirement that you dive a back plate and wing. Millions of people jump in the water with a cushiony, comfortable jacket BCD and live to tell the tale. Heck, they greatly enjoy everything about it. And some people can even do it with decent trim and buoyancy. And there’s no shame in that whatsoever.

 

[RobPNW]

I threw mine together 2 days before a trip and it was the first time in the water with one. It took me around 5 minutes be used to it and not remember I changed anything.

What are the bigazz nuts on the plate for?

 

[runsongas]

@Inazuma zoomer how long is your torso and how tall are you? it sounds like the standard medium plate is too short for you

 

[rx7diver]

OP, FWIW, I, too, don't care much for a BP/W (doubles-type BP) when it's worn with a single cylinder--especially, if it uses a STA (Single Tank Adapter).

In my open water course (in 1986), for a few weeks we used a single cylinder mounted on an "old-school", plastic blow-molded backpack and a simple harness (and no BC). Some of those harnesses were the more familiar 2"-wide nylon harnesses. Other harnesses were the old-fashioned, flimsy, cotton harnesses whose shoulder straps closed using double-D-rings (instead of, say, a weight belt-type buckle). Either rig was incredibly comfortable: Simply strap yourself into one or the other and adjust your shoulder straps so that the rig was secure enough while still allowing you the ability to reach over your shoulder and manipulate your valve while you're "diving."

Today's BP/W (doubles-type BP), when it's worn with a single cylinder (and, especially, if it uses a STA Single Tank Adapter!), pales in comparison to the plastic backpack's level of comfort.

For the plastic backpack level of comfort, I "discovered" the SS Freedom Plate, purchased one new in 2010, and have never looked back!

However, for my still-new baby doubles (Faber LP50's), I resurrected the mothballed DiveRite Al (original) doubles back plate I purchased new ca. 1994 (for use with my double HP cylinders for diving Great Lakes deep shipwrecks). IMHO, a doubles back plate really shines when used with double cylinders: Simply "locate" the cylinders in the doubles bands and adjust the shoulder straps (and crotch strap) so that the rig is secure enough while still allowing you the ability to reach back and manipulate your valves while you're diving. Fine tune a bit more for balance after the first couple of "dives." Not difficult. No "instruction" required. (But you won't experience this level of comfort if you switch out the doubles for a single. IMHO.)

Enjoy.

rx7diver

 

[rsingler]

Well, I'll play Devil's Advocate and agree with virtually everything the OP has posted. I've got steel plates, aluminum plates, a carbon plate and a Freedom plate, and except for the Freedom plate, they all have suboptimal routing for both shoulder and waist belt.
It's all a Hogarthian legacy, which has its own advantages and disadvantages. So we defend what we have and call it correct.
Me? I haven't fixed the shoulder angle issue, because as others have pointed out, it's loose underwater. And I haven't yet sewn up a climber's Y for the front of the crotch strap. So it does pull down at the buckle when my wing is full at the surface.
But I have switched to an adjustable harness with all those extra failure points and I'm much happier. Yeah, I can get in and out of a Hogarthian rig, tho' less easily these days as my shoulders age. But the angles to my adjustable harness are perfect in front; it's comfy, and I can loosen things easily for doffing. I can even tighten the shoulders comfortably to put my Kraken close in between my shoulder blades when I'm diving DH.
Win-win, except for the occasional scoffing glances from folks with "pure" rigs. But at my age, I'm too old to care.

 

[rsingler]

Hah! No sooner did I post this than I find this thread: Plate stuff, tweaks and new designs.
And I quote...
"I...did some welding up of slots on top because I don’t like the way the slots are cut for the shoulder straps. I was intending to find a better way to run the top slots so the webbing wouldn’t bunch up on one side like it does on the standard doubles plates..."

I concur, @Eric Sedletzky !

 

[tmassey]

Win-win, except for the occasional scoffing glances from folks with "pure" rigs. But at my age, I'm too old to care.

What works, works. That’s true for OP or @rsingler as much as anyone else.

The important part of your gear is that it facilitates your ability to dive safely and effectively. Until you’re doing serious tech dives, *any* gear of decent quality in good repair will do it safely. And “effectively” is a pretty broad target — and you get to define exactly what that is.

Something I was going to add to my above post but it was already too long, but I think it fits here: backplate and wing is kind of like a sports car. Not some supercar, but a car designed first and foremost for performance. When you need that performance and know how to get it from the car, you’re really glad you’ve got it. But for the other 99.5% of the time: your groceries won’t fit, your legs are cramped and you feel every bump on your daily commute. Is that a good trade-off? Probably not for most people…. And unless you actually know how to properly drive a sports car *for performance*, it probably won’t even give you that extra performance in the first place!

That doesn’t mean the sports car is “wrongly” or “badly” designed. It just doesn’t fit *your* definition of “effective”. Just don’t blame the car because it’s not the right one for you.

Backplate and wing are the same way. Unless you use them the way *they* want to be used, you are worse off than with whatever you had before. That’s not the fault of the equipment, but how it’s being used. But even when you *do* use them the right way, you *still* might be worse off — for what *you* want out of the dive.

And if that’s the case, don’t use them. And ignore the snobs or purists. @The Chairman has it right: dive and let dive. I tell you what, every time I can’t get my arm out of my single-piece webbing, I pine longingly for a quick-release… And as long as the consequence of a broken buckle is substantially short of death (and in recreational scuba it almost certainly is), go for it!