Posts by Dan

  • Making a spearfishing board from a Bodyboard

    I'm as concerned about sharks as everybody, and powerheads are nice to have. One of the main reasons for the board is that it keeps the fish out of the water and is less likely to attract sharks.


    Here are some of the options I was talking about earlier. An Australian production plat, very expensive.



    My idea with the small kayak. These are kayaks for white water and they're tiny, also very expensive as they're specialized. I'd give this a shot as a beach diving platform before anything else if I had money to throw away. I wonder if you can get into one from the water.



  • Making a spearfishing board from a Bodyboard

    Why would you be diving in very strong waves?


    Hatteras, if I had more free time I'd have liked to build the board out of Divinycel or whatever it is they use to make the tuna boards. Why not, it's already a board so why not make it right for all eventualities. I've thought a lot about the ideal setup for beach diving. The Australians use a sort of floating box with a catamaran base. I thought of a very small kayak. There are really many possibilities because I think no one has done it exactly right yet. Maybe one day I'll get around to it. And in the meanwhile the board with the bungee net is the next best thing.

  • Whats the best speargun brand?...railguns and wood

    Moved to the speargun section.


    A home made wood gun is the best. You can make it as light or robust as you want, put a handle on it that's perfect for your hand, and use the best components without compromise to create a solid durable speargun, beside which most of the pipe spearguns look like rinky dink toys. Parts will run you about $250.

  • Pnewbeematic??

    It's not that loud for the diver using it, but the "thunk" of the piston hitting the muzzle can be heard by another diver 100 yards away. I was stalking a fish when my partner shot his pneumatic at least 50 yards away and my fish flinched and took off. The sound is unmistakable and will alert you to the presence of other divers in the area that you didn't know about, if you're in a region where pneumatics are popular. The bottom line about pneumatic is that they're a good choice when all you have access to are poorly made band guns. Having the possibility of making a wood band gun there's no question about what I would choose.

  • Sunday 2/22/10

    Gotta be logged on facebook to see the vid, so I can't see it, don't know about everyone else. Youtube would be better.

  • AR-15 rifle handle & grips for a speargun handle

    Machined out of a solid block of hard anodiszed aircraft grade aluminum. Features a redesigned contoured trigger guard. Accpets all standard AR15 grips. Grips are easily installed and removed with one bolt, from inside the hollow grip. Allows the diver a choice from a wide selection of grips to suit their hand, and to conveniently reduce the profile of the gun for storage when travelling. Secures to the stock with four screws.


    Available from Freedive Store AR15 Speargun Handle Frame




  • Unscented conditioner for putting on wetsuits

    In general I don't like artificial scents to point of irritability, I feel bombarded with them. Consider the number of different scents we subject ourselves to; soap, shampoo, conditioner, shaving cream, deodorant, aftershave or cologne, and for some still more after; hair gel or spray, moisturizing lotion etc etc. Add to that everyone else who you have to deal with in close proximity and their stuff which is different than yours. On top of that I feel the most inappropriate time and place for these scents is in the sea environment. When you use hair conditioner mixed with water to put on a wetsuit you'll get constant whiffs of the conditioner.


    I already use unscented soap which is readily available, so I set out to find unscented conditioner which proved to be harder. The local supermarket (Publix) nor the pharmacy (Walgreens) had any. I searched online and found a few products targeted specifically to someone like me, they are categorized as unscented or fragrance free. My next stop was at a local natural/health food market, Whole Foods. I was very pleased that they had a few choices of conditioner which really didn't smell like anything, of which I selected the cheapest for $3.


    I started figuring out the appropriate amount of the unscented conditioner to mix with water. It seemed to me that in the end with this conditioner, I had to use more of it than the regular conditioner I was using previously to achieve the slippery feeling, lets say about a table spoon to a spray bottle full of water. I sprayed the inside of the wetsuit liberally and it went on and came off easily, and there was no scent.