Awesome work IHAB and Mark 
the muzzle has beautiful flow and fit.
Cheers, Don
Posts by Don Paul
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What youre seeing is the reflection of a plastic wetsuit bag on the floor in the shiny fin finish. Took me a minute to realize what was going on lol.
Funny,
I thought you were testing some camo fins from Speardiver I didn't know about.Cheers, Don
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Dam that suit pattern looks great ! What up with the fins?
Cheers, Don
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Welcome buddy. There is a great club in SD called San Diego Freedivers.
The net is a helpful place up to a point...find some one to mentor/dive with in your area.Do you surf or do other water sports?
Cheers, Don
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Now that was a really comprehensive report mate, very nicely done .
Thank you for the detailed data.Cheers, Don
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Some data for a cold spring night.; best with a good red wine.
Cheers, Don
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And I am sold.
Thanks Don.
I should have said this would be for oily wood types only, If I had a stock of laminated multi wood I would diffidently be sealing it well.
Imron and Sterling marine paint rock too....but $. Phil's stuff is great as well if you ever go that route.
Cheers, Don
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If coral is chewin on the gun both finish's will get scratched and scuffed.
For a work horse I would use thinned epoxie or tung oil finish.
I have Phil's epoxie on my 3 work guns, but they don't contact the reef too much, just boat swim steps and a few Panga rides once in a while.Cheers, Don
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All I know is I got a painful shaft testing it's speed in salt water :@
never had the issue as a teenager, but maybe it was sand.On average the world oceans are 1.025g/ml in density at the surface.
Fresh water will be a faster medium to test in at the same depth but but over the short distances a shaft or pool-spear travel were splitting fine soft hairs here.Cheer's Don
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Planning on it actually, it's already tapered a tiny bit, but I'm waiting until I can load it to see how much I can remove and still support the bands. Thanks for the ideas!
One safe way to do this is... take your elongated band dia, then use vinyl hose or cheap rubber hose cut a wee bit tighter then the band stretch, tie in the wishbones, fit the shaft and mock bands and you get a close idea how the band lives.
Taking this old school...before cad/cam
one way to plot a gun shape is to use a cheep Douglas fir dowel with milled grove formed with a table saw. Hot glue the shaft to the groove in a few spots, nail the mockup bands (sprayed with silicone) to the front, then cover the midsection to muzzle area with model clay and cock the bands.After I practiced this method a few times I was able to get a busty chick to model for my newly formed art skills.;) I don't want to dis-rail
the build so no pictures. ( I'll post one in members only);)Cheers, Don
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Really shaping up nicely...waiting for the laser cut SS will be torture.
Cheers, Don
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to the sear is 52"
Great that will be a sweet shooter with out issues unless you try to push a PPD with too much mass for sharks of the Bullish type.:)
The barrel can also be sweet with a 1/4'' shaft and 1- 3/4 band for the fast fish.
Cheers, Don
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Don the band stretch is 50 inches from back tab to bands. Its total length is 59" in the end with a little bit of extra butt for control and loading ease.
Cool, but from the front wood to the mech sear
I'll come back to the word ''band stretch'' with some thoughts.D
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Reef I know you said ya have a 58'' stock, but what is the distance
from the mech front to where your back most power band rests?Don
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I will consider 7.5mm if I experience excessive shaft whip at the power level I like,
Unless you run more then a foot of overhang on the 7mm flopper shaft, your twin 16mm rubber will not produce a excessive spline cycle, column loading...deflection ''shaft whip'' (what ever you guy's want to name it) on the rubber pull distance, geometry and elongation values you are dealing with. .....Trust me .....believe it or not.... but it all has been done before...tested and used in the wild and documented in some body's engineering log that will never be freely published due to dangerous test procedures not sanctioned by OSHA.;)
I love your build, and that your doing it with your dad. Shoot it, test it and develop it freely to your hunting style....enjoy the journey.
Cheers, Don
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Reef, Gabriele's SS muzzle design style you are honoring
snugs the twin 16mm bands up to the wood on the one gun I have see in person. As Ihab stated bands that can rotate in the band port are a inconvenience when uncocked and should be avoided.All the best, Don
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Yes. And I hope he's been playing with a blonde instead...
<img src= " class="smiley" srcset="https://spearfishing.world/forum/images/smilies/emojione/1f606@2x.png 2x" height="23" width="23" loading="eager" data-tooltip="biggrin" aria-label="biggrin">She's the one that has given me high blood pressure, stress is a killer.;)
and I really miss my whiskey and espresso.:(Cheers, Don
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Just finished reading 41 pages about the Airbalete and would like to know what happened to it.Any bloody fish pictures/ updates? I know that I'm kind of late but it would interest me how the gun does . Cheers
No bloody fish pic were taken with the gun, but the tweaked Airbalete did ok landing a small (mid twenty's) Blue fin and Yellow fin
tuna offshore, along with a few small white sea bass and calico off the beach.
It will be my camera gun this summer when I return to the game.
With a 7mil shaft @ 30 bar the muzzle brake rubber is still in one piece after about 30 test and fish shots. The Tuna were hauling ass but hard to miss 12 feet off the tip, this guns handling and shaft speed are impressive as you guys will see once I mount the GoPro.This gun is not my primary gun in any way for game fish, just something to tinker and play with like a toy, teaching my son some skills along the way.
Cheers, Don
