Weighting a new steel tank?

[David P]

I just stumbled across an E8-119 and bought it. But kinda curious about my weighting. I thought if an al80 is 5lbs pos at the end of a dive and the pst is 1 lb neg. I planned on dropping 6 lbs from my belt and fine tune from there. Then I heard someone say it was nice droping 10lbs from their belt when they switched from al to steel. If dropping 6lbs isnt the way to start, should I do a bouyancy check and once I can just sink under the water I should add 10lbs to compensate for the weight swing?

TIA

 

[hermosadive]

Your E8-119 will have a buoyancy of -0.5 lbs empty and -9.5 lbs full http://www.lloydbaileysscuba.com/PST E Series Tanks.htm . A Catalina AL80 will be around +4 lbs empty and -2 full. You should be able to drop 4-6 pounds depending on your AL80. I would start with 4 and drop 1lb each dive until you get it dialed in.

 

[Diver0001]

I just stumbled across an E8-119 and bought it. But kinda curious about my weighting. I thought if an al80 is 5lbs pos at the end of a dive and the pst is 1 lb neg. I planned on dropping 6 lbs from my belt and fine tune from there. Then I heard someone say it was nice droping 10lbs from their belt when they switched from al to steel. If dropping 6lbs isnt the way to start, should I do a bouyancy check and once I can just sink under the water I should add 10lbs to compensate for the weight swing?

TIA

I would start with dropping 4 and prepare to spend some time on your bouyancy and trim over the next few dives. Not only your buoyancy will change but so will your trim.

I suspect that the person who said they dropped 10 lbs when the went to steel was probably significantly overweighted with the AL tank to begin with. He/she may have been able to drop more weight than the swing in buoyancy if the new tank also cleared up a trim issue they had.

R..

 

[David P]

ok, so I may have been off on the weights, but my logic was sound. Thanx

 

[skyking]

I used the difference in the factory specs - Luxfer 80 +4.5 empty, E8-119 -3.3 empty - dropped 8 lbs and ended up about right. It may not seem that way early in the dive due to the greater air capacity of the E8-119 (3 extra lbs of gas).

 

[liberato]

I would use the specs listed here as far as PST tank bouyancy goes.