Side mount starting point ?

[DevonDiver]

Sometimes, the seemingly quick easy solution presents further problems....which require further solutions... and there's a cascade of necessary fixes...

It's cute that the American divers here are getting a chance to play with aluminium cylinders.... and enjoying working out some problems with them.

Meanwhile, vast regions of the globe have been diving exclusively with aluminium cylinders since scuba began..... and since sidemount began.... and over thousands or millions of dives those people managed to actually work some things out very well.

Not the quickest, tempting, fixes... but the uncompromising stuff that works long-term and doesn't bring about a plethora of other issues that'll eventually demand further mods and fixes...

But, yeah... it's cute that some Americans know better, when doing good it for the very first time... LOL

 

[Caveeagle]

I don't think the condescending tone does much to help the conversation along.

a) You should not be afraid to try something JUST because people tell you its wrong, or won't work. Example: the Wright Brothers..

b) You are short sighted and dangerous if you are unable to listen and learn from those who have made MANY mistakes before you, and care enough to share those lessons with you. ...NOT just tell you that you are wrong, or will fail.

Can you balance a & b?

 

[Patoux01]

But the Wright brothers knew what others had done and what they had done wrong...

 

[Doby45]

I don't think the condescending tone does much to help the conversation along.

a) You should not be afraid to try something JUST because people tell you its wrong, or won't work. Example: the Wright Brothers..

b) You are short sighted and dangerous if you are unable to listen and learn from those who have made MANY mistakes before you, and care enough to share those lessons with you. ...NOT just tell you that you are wrong, or will fail.

Can you balance a & b?

Could not agree more, the "Holier than thou" in here reeks..

 

[Caveeagle]

But the Wright brothers knew what others had done and what they had done wrong...

Really.. If memory serves, they applied a new lighter engine to some things that had been working well for gliders already. Maybe adding some bicycle engineering that helped a little..

 

[Patoux01]

Isn't that exactly what I said?

Where do you see anything new in "let me see if I can add weight to my tank"?

 

[RainPilot]

Why do we always have to yuck someone else's yum?

The OP is not going to die because he puts a weight on his tank or be safer because he didn't. There are SOOO many ways of skinning diving cats, most of them are pretty much down to personal choice or fitting in with a team.

Since he is not concerned about team diving, then I really don't think we need to go on and on about whether or not it should be done. This is not a 5000 mile push into Eagle's Nest, this is to all intents and purposes mounting 2 pony bottles to a BM kit, using some SM techniques to keep it tidy.

 

[Coztick]

Before going sm, I learned all I could from these same people in this thread. Everything suggested to me and others as well as here is being offered by experts in training with thousands of hours of experience.

This made things easy.
All my sm instructor had to offer was a good frog kick and some fun diving. Oh yah, got a c card to dive my preferred configuration. Andy and the rest here had my shnit sorted before I hit the water. Thanks folks!

I did hit the pool once before the course and was pleasantly shocked that my trim was near perfect from the start.

I think as experts with progress in mind, it would be pretty frustrating to argue merits of their passion or professional opinion.

You train with the end in mind.
If it's not OK latter, how can it be OK now?