Posts by Peripatetic

Thanks Dude

I can't wait to get it in the water! The second coat of epoxy was dry this morning. I will do a third this afternoon, tie up some bands, and put it to use. I hear the Dorado have just arrived offshore

The first coat was applied yesterday and I sanded it down to 320 this morning. This afternoon I will apply a second coat. Pics will follow.

An ancient Golden Retriever and a Jack Russel.

The gun ended up 1 1/2 X 1 11/16. It was a fun process. I can see building many more.

Here is the nearly finished product minus sanding and epoxy. I will try to get the first coat on this afternoon.

All cuts are done! Tomorrow I will sand and apply the 1st coat of epoxy:thumbsup2:

I plan to use this as my go to gun for inshore and light blue water. It ended up having 115 cm of band stretch, so should be plenty of gun for medium range. I am looking forward to getting it in the water soon.

One of the first rules of woodworking states that it is easier to take wood away than to add more. I started out oversize and made most of the critical cuts. Right now the stock is 1 7/8' X 2 1/16". With the handle installed the stock depth at the grip is now 1 11/16. Today I will take the sides down to 1 5/8" and taper the height towards the muzzle.

Here is an update on gun progress:
Yesterday I cut in the trigger mechanism and track on a router table I made from my old chop saw stand. It worked great and the mechanism and shaft align perfectly. This morning I pinned the mech, and installed the line release.I am off to Home Depot (they are all over Mexico) to get a new 5/8 router bit, then will mortise in the handle, an AR-15 rear handle type.

In general I find it pretty basic shop work, with setup and layout being the critical parts.

I got my parts via Fed Ex yesterday, and built a router table this morning out of my chop saw stand. This weekend I will be routing in the mech, track, handle and band slot.

The blank has been hanging for a month now and is dead straight. If everything goes smoothly, I will be ready to epoxy next week!

A while back I posed a question of specific gravity of wood for building guns. My plan was to build a slightly negative (when loaded) gun, with positive buoyancy without the shaft. Looking through locally available hard woods I came across a source of Tzalam, a dense tropical hardwood frequently used for flooring and furniture here in Mexico.

I glued up a 60" blank with two vertical laminations of Tzalam and a horizontal top sheet of Satine I had laying around. I let the blank hang for one month, then squared it up yesterday. My parts should be here in a few days and I can start cutting. The gun will be a 110 cm "Amero" style open track with a 5/16 shaft and two 5/8" bands, with the option for a third.

After looking at available handles I decided on the full mortise AR-15 rear handle that Neptonics sells. As a lifetime woodworker and furniture maker I have developed a preference for a full mortise connection as opposed to relying on fasteners, so this made the choice of handle obvious for me.

I will post pictures as work progress, and I hope to have the gun finished for the long Xmas break.

This weekends diving conditions were markedly improved. Visibility was in the 30' range. I saw a few small grouper, and shot a few Paloma.

I dove Saturday and Sunday in Michoacan to the north of La Ticla. There were many trees and other floating objects after Hurricane Patricia, but I found no fish under them. Water clarity was poor, 3 to 5' compared to our normal 30 to 50'. Our beach suffered very little damage and no boats were lost. Local hook and line guys report no Dorado to be found. The six boats that went out on Saturday all got skunked.

To the north at Boca de Pasquales the water looked like chocolate milk from flooding due to heavy rains. Hopefully the water will clear up a bit and we will start to see some fish

Gracias fergtm

Que lastima que pierde tu amigo su panga en el hurucan. I would love to join you and your friends some weekend, and to start to explore some different areas. My diving is limited right now by work and a remodel of our new house, but I try to get out a couple of weekends a month. I will be going to Michoacan this weekend. Hopefully the water temperature has dropped and there are some pelagics around.

Mexico was incredibly lucky. The storm came ashore in a sparsely populated area, but despite that fact that there were no fatalities, many people lost everything. It will take some time to rebuild.

Now that the storm has passed we can look forward to cooler water temperatures and lots of flotsam. Hopefully we will start to see some more fish

I ripped this shot from the net. Thanks Brian Kahn (www.wxshift.com Brian Kahn)

Patricia seems to have passed through with relatively little damage. According to the latest reports there have been no deaths reported and surprisingly little damage along the coast. Undoubtedly many people, especially the campesinos, lives were seriously affected, but compared to expectations, the biggest hurricane ever was surprisingly gentle.

7 PM I just got at text from Punta Mita. Until now it has been "tranquillo". The storm apparently made landfall just to the south.

Hola

I heard from a friend in Punta Mita this morning, but the phones and internet are down in Vallarta/ Punta Mita now. Patricia started to come ashore an hour or so ago. It looks like the storm track is hitting Vallarta directly. Lets hope everyone makes it through. Communications seem to be down from Michoacan to Nayarit and its only going to get worse.

The storm is being billed as the biggest hurricane ever in the Pacific. The latest wind speed was 190 mph. I'm keeping close tabs as we still have internet in Guadalajara
I hope your friend is ok Philippe.

Thanks for the responses. I would like to meet some of the local freediving community, as I live here full time and have only begun to explore the waters. Hablo Espanol, sino bien, but there is not much talking while diving anyway.

My intention on starting this thread was to revive the discussion on Mainland Mexico diving. There are apparently very few spearos posting here, although Nayarit (PUnta Mita and Puerto Vallarta) has world famous fishing and spearfishing. It would be nice to hear about other less popular parts of Mexico as well.

So if you are a freediver headed south, or living in Mexico post up please