Question about a crotch strap

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sylvester

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Ok folks, I am putting a back plate together, I bought my 2" webbing from AUL when I ordered my plate. After string the harness through the plate the concept is simple seems very sturdy. But now I have some questions?

I have some extra webbing for the crotch strap. Seems to me 2" webbing is a little wide for a crotch strap? Feedback welcomed.

Also, I understand to make a loop for the waist band to go through to secure the crotch strap to the harness. How is it secured to the backplate? Do I have it fitted and sewn in place so it is non adjustable? Do I run the webbing through and secure it by behind me under the back plate with a buckle?
 
Freeze! Don't do anything until you read this!

I dove many backplates before buying one, and the crotchstrap issue was a big one to me. With very large thighs, I found 2" crotchstraps to stab and pinch, and be pretty uncomfortable. I found the 1" crotchstrap to work much better for me, but I still wasn't a fan. In fact, I almost didn't buy a BP/wings because I found that BP/wings weren't stable without them, and I simply wasn't a fan of them.

That's when I tried a Halcyon backplate and wings that was set up at Extreme Exposure (in effect, Halcyon's retail outlet). They used a 2" crotchstrap, but made it out of much softer and more pliable material than their standard 2" webbing. The 2" wide crotchstrap did a better job at loading any weight or pull across a wider area (making it more comfortable) without any undue stabbing or pinching.

...So when I ordered my stuff and built my backplate, I called Extreme Exposure and ordered a Halcyon crotchstrap. In my humble opinion, it's $35 very well spent.

Sure, I could have made one and used the same stiff 2" webbing that I used (for it's durability) for the rest of the rig... But why torture myself?

No doubt you will also appreciate the specialized material!
 
$35 for a CROTCH STRAP??? Please tell me you did not pay $35 for a piece of "soft webbing"???? I must be missing something here... Please tell me that there is something else there...

ANyways... sylvester: one inch webbing will be fine for most people. If you get one from dive rite, oms, or zeagle, or even someone else, the pieces that you get would be a piece of one inch webbing with a sewn loop in it with a scooter ring sewn into the loop, and then a little piece of plastic with two holes in it to pass the webbing through and hold it in place behind you (near backplate). Good Luck...
 
I have one plate with a soft 2" crotch strap and one plate with stiffer 2" weight belting for the crotch strap. Neither are uncomfortable.

Make your loop using a D-ring and weightbelt keeper... use the same thing for attaching the strap to the plate and you have a butt ring and a scooter ring.

If you don't use a scooter then pass the loop through the D-ring when gearing up to keep it out of the way.

If you ever do use a scooter you will be glad you have 2" webbing... especially if you have a Gavin hooked to the crotch strap and set on 9. :D
 
LUBOLD8431 once bubbled...
$35 for a CROTCH STRAP??? Please tell me you did not pay $35 for a piece of "soft webbing"???? I must be missing something here... Please tell me that there is something else there...

Well, it was a complete unit, with the rubber holders, the D-ring sewn in, and the rear D-ring and keeper and all...

But of course, that does not justify a $35 price tag either.

What DOES justify it is trying it on... Swimming with it. Soft 2" webbing is very difficult to find... I've not found it anywhere else. I was told by someone other than Halcyon that the stuff is available in like 500 yard spools only... Thus, it's not cost effective to purchase for distribution unless you're a large(ish) company up the street manufacturing these things yourself.

You'll be very interested to know that the crotch strap I bought was the last one on the shelf. I tried to buy two, for my other backplate, but they only had one available. When I had called to price it originally less than a week earlier, there were several in the shop. My point is that I'm not the only one who feels this way about a $35 piece of webbing.

For me, it was truly the difference between comfort or no comfort. Interestingly, even WITH the price of this crotchstrap, my rig STILL costs less than an upper-echelon jacket style BC, and will last many times longer... And do more as I grow into more technical forms of diving.

In all, I would have purchased this strap at twice the price. Had they had two of them, I would have. :D

Apparently, UP doesn't have the thigh problem that I do... Perhaps it's sensitive to body type. For me, though, I found a big enough difference to warrant the specialized crotch strap.

When I ordered this plate from Gary Hoadley, I specifically asked him about the soft webbing as a crotch strap. He told me that his crotch straps were made of "unstiffened" 2" webbing, much softer than the standard 2" webbing that he uses for the rest of his rigs. I was excited to find this.

However, when I got the plate, I was disappointed. It was true that he used an "unstiffened" material which appeared to be the same 2" webbing as what was on the rest of his rig, just not as thick. It still felt too stiff to me, though

The Halcyon stuff is super-soft and very nice. :D

Perhaps UP will sell you his if he doesn't care about it.
 
I agree $35 is rediculous but...

I actually got seatbelt webbing by mistake to reweb my harness. I got the correct stiffer webbing and used the seatbelt webbing for my crotch strap. I like it alot, i dont even know its there during a dive. Very comfortable as far as i am concerned!

Andy

And i managed to get the 2 in material throught the small 1" OMS plate slot. My Oragami skills paid off :)
 
SeaJay once bubbled...
In all, I would have purchased this strap at twice the price. Had they had two of them, I would have. :D
I'll sell you as many as you want... nice~n~soft too....

And since seat belts come in all sorts of colors... and most auto wrecking yards are infested with 'em... I'll even let you pick your favorite color.

$4 worth of weight belt keepers/d-rings and $2 for the webbing... I can definitely sell them to you for $70.


BTW.... Seajay... I actually have a genuine Halcyon crotch strap in stock if you need another official one.
 
I also bought two backup lights... You know, the Delrin ones that go on my chest... I bought a pair of those things for $89 each! I even bought a Halcyon DIR knife at $80, and get this... A Halcyon hard pocket for a whopping $80! Yes, that's for a pocket!

Do I have regrets? Absolutely not!

Look, you guys... I don't think that any person tried as many BC's as I did. I know what works. I know how serious I am abou this. I quit smoking for this, fer chrissakes. I changed my eating habits, man. This money is nothing by comparison of the other committments I've made to diving!

Here's the funny thing... Go ahead and laugh at how much this stuff costs... Guess what... It was still less than the "mainstream" BC I was looking at!

I can't wait to get it all wet. :)
 
Jeez, man... I can't believe I'm giving up my pigsticker... Now you guys think that we should all go down to ground-down steak knives?

Don't you guys ever run into the occassional anchor line? I mean, when I find something like that, I go find that anchor and bring it up for the captain. They love us for it... But you've always got to cut the line off, and there's just no way you're cutting through a one-inch line with a half-inch blade...
 
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