And welcome ! There are rigtigt good people here on forummet and loads af widely .
Overvejelser that share nogle Norway Bill Eder , I think , the other members here will BLIVE surprised at how much life there is up there
Google translator….almost gets it. :D….oh, Welcome !!:laughing:
Wow, that's surprisingly bad. Almost as bad as Chinese to English (I live in China) - but still better than Chinese to Danish, haha.
Hej Kim,
Og velkommen! Der er rigtigt gode mennesker her på forummet og masser af viden.
Overvej at dele nogle Norgesbilleder, jeg tror, de andre medlemmer her vil blive overraskede over hvor meget liv der er deroppe:-)
Haha, finally I get a chance of getting back at all you members of the Spanish speaking tribe who can spend whole threads keeping me on the outside....;-)
Basically, I just said hi to Kim in our shared Northern tongue and told him people here are cool. Also, tried to convince him to share some pics from Norway - which is where Danish spearos tend to go to see properly sized fish (stocks). Stunning nature, too. Like New Zealand of the north.
David
That or a Pneumatic gun. I just got a 100 cm Cyrano EVO HF for murky water big fish. It is shorter than a 90 Euro and shots like a 110 double banded. This is an expensive gun, but for your budget, a Sten 11 is a very nice gun.
Hey Marco,
One thing I always wondered about is the handling in the water. How would you say your air weapon tracks and handles compared to, say, a 110-120 rail gun?
(I know, since you have an Evo HF, you are a bit "spoiled" with the slimmer nose - traditional airguns are 40mm in diameter all the way to the muzzle).
Also, in case you are curious about the vacuum muzzle, I am attaching pics of Salvimar's vac muzzle for Evo HF and some swank images from a Danish spearo who had Marko/Tomi make him a custom muzzle.
(Photo credit to Povlsen for the rigged Evo HF with Tomba muzzle)
BTW, the slider is from Marko, too. Very nice and low profile.
BTW_2, Don Paul, don't you have a Tomba for your Airbalete...?
That or a Pneumatic gun. I just got a 100 cm Cyrano EVO HF for murky water big fish. It is shorter than a 90 Euro and shots like a 110 double banded. This is an expensive gun, but for your budget, a Sten 11 is a very nice gun.
Exactly, but I didn't feel good saying it, as I don't have much experience with bandguns but I love hearing it from the guys who do;-)
[Below, I let myself loose with my thoughts on airguns - just skip it all if you don't care;-)]
Marco is right, Stens are proper work horses and they have no known ailments. They are almost impossible to kill;-). Except for a few cosmetic changes and a thinner trigger pin, the design and interior has not changed for at least 20-30 years.
The Evo HF is a new design but can be viewed as a face-lifted Sten with a more hydrodynamic tank, nicer handle, an inner barrel which sits higher in the gun and one tiny change on the inside (bigger transfer port in the power regulator bulkhead). The Evo HF has more bling and may track a bit better but they should be very comparable in power.
The Evo HF has had a few cases reported with line releases seizing (Hope Marco's will stay good).
The Sten will come with a shitty galvanized shaft in shorter sizes and an OK/good SS shaft in larger sizes, but I can't recall exactly at what size the change happens. But you can get nice 6.5 - 8mm shafts in 17-4ph SS from Sigalsub complete with slide rings and sliding washer to suit oleos without any need for modifications. (BTW, "oleo" is short hand for pneumatics in their Italian mother tongue).
The Sten itself is often for sale at good prices.
Marco mentions the Sten 11 which refers to the inner diameter of the barrel vs. 13mm which used to be the standard. Stens come in both 11 and 13mm.
11mm is an advantage unless you want to upgrade the guns with a vacuum muzzle. A vac muzzle has a seal at the muzzle barring water from entering the shooting barrel but without a vac muzzle, an 11mm will be more efficient than a 13mm as there is less room around the shaft for water. This water will need to be expelled during the shot, so less water means less power lost, resulting in a more powerful shot.
But for the ultimate in power, I would definitely recommend a vacuum muzzle. Supposedly, you get a 15% or so increase in power, I never tested it and all my airguns have vac muzzles now. Or stick to the same power as you have now, with 15% less loading effort.
If you go with a vacuum muzzle, 13mm has a very slight theoretical advantage but I would just make the choice based on which one I could get cheaper.
Vac muzzles are made for both 11mm and 13mm barreled guns.
It's an easy modification to undertake as Salvimar now produces them and many online stores carry them. Only thing is that the seal in the vac muzzle will wear out, so those you have to change once in a while. But you can do that without depressurizing the gun. The install of the vac muzzle itself is easy: depressurize gun, unscrew original muzzle, put new one on and pump gun.
There are a handful more vac muzzle options available and I can elaborate on that if needed.
BTW, Marco, Salvimar now makes the vac muzzles for your Evo gun, too;-). Or get a custom one from the dad and son team in Croatia (Tomi and Marko). I can PM you contact info, they make beautiful stuff!
Some people think oleos break down more often than band guns but I think if you stick with a known design and don't tamper too much with the insides, then that's not true. I hear plenty of stories of oleos never having been serviced working impeccably for five, ten, twenty years.
Even if they need servicing, it is fairly easy to do yourself if you are just a tad technical. And a new set of o-rings costs 5 bucks. In the long run, I am pretty sure oleos are cheaper than bandguns - no new bands needed:-)
I have a 90cm oleo (and a few others). It fits in a fin bag and is a perfect travel gun. Except, that if you empty it before flying (which I stopped doing) you have to pump it again at the destination. For smaller guns it's OK, for bigger ones it can be a chore.
The only thing is that if they do leak, or break down, then you have to take them apart to service them and that can be annoying if traveling. But again, if you stick to a proven design without too many crazy mods, then in all likelihood it wont break down on you.
An alternative to the Sten, the Seac Asso is another golden oldie but I like the Stens more. The Stens have softer trigger pulls and better pistons.
Also, Salvimar has a cool looking gun called the Predathor Vuoto. These are very nicely priced, comes with the vacuum muzzle already and in large sizes a reel, too. The handle looks better than the Sten, but I haven't tried one yet. The trigger pull will be slightly heavier. It's a new design and they seemed to have gotten most of it right out of the box, except for the slider which is too brittle and has broken on occasion, but sliders can be had from other companies fairly easy - And Salvimar may have rectified this issue quietly.
Shorter pneumatics can be slightly (nose) heavy in the water, though they still float after shooting. I am very allergic to even the slightest nose heaviness, but others are not. Depends, also, on your type of diving. If you do long days, long dives in shallow water you are likely to be holding the gun horizontally for longer than if you are in deeper water. But when you start getting to 90cm, the oleos should be quite well balanced with 7mm spears. Obviously, if you go to 6.5 or 6.75mm, you get some help in that department.
Also, to come back to the vac muzzle - that makes a gun a bit more buoyant since it will restrict water from entering the shooting barrel.
If you had lived in Europe or have friends heading there once in a while, I would tell you to hit the Italian forums and buy secondhand. Very good guns go on sale there, bandguns, too and the length you are after is what they shoot, too. Google Translate have helped me buy two guns in Italy now (shipped to Denmark, still in the EU/EC, but maybe Canada would be a stretch).
No carbon steel shafts for oleos though. You don't want rust or corrosion in your barrel messing with your piston's seal. That said, I was silly enough to just order a RA shaft to try it out myself, but the odds are against me. While on the topic of stuff in the barrel, shore dives should be fine. People do it all the time in Denmark.
OK, end of story;-)
Ah, not completely - I'll throw some approximate numbers at you:
Salvimar Vac Muzzle (aftermarket upgrade): Euro 40
Three spare seals for above: Euro 9
Shaft, app: Euro 20
Curve ball coming in, can't help it;-)
But a 90cm vacuum-muzzled pneumatic is a sweet gun, small, very easy to handle but shoots super fast and precise. You can even go 15-20cm up in size and have something more the size of a banded 90 as airguns are measured differently.
With a power regulator you have a low power shot option for shooting into holes or near rock.
But I know you asked specifically for band guns, so will shut up now:)
One day, I will get to test my airguns against some good bandguns and share. We need that:-).
Hank man!
When I landed on the first page of this mammoth thread for the first time this morning, I was like: "shit, 45 pages of old stuff from an old dude in some far away place...:@"
Then I gave the first few posts a quick glance and then, I was hooked.
I just, literally, read through all 45 pages. What a thrill! What a privilege and man, did I wish I would have been there just for a 1/10th of it.
Beautiful fish, great diving and you are doing it all with friends and family. Such an inspiration.
Thanks SO, SO much.
I just went through my "archives" and found some pics I had stored of a French builder's handles.
I hope Mizalo wont mind that I re-post them here for inspiration:
If Google translate serves me right, he used the white plastic as a plug and used it to make a mold for the fiber handles:
His wife supposedly did the paint jobs on the barrels:-)
I don't know if he is in business any longer, these pics are four years old, he has not been active on the forum where I got them from since 2013 and his website has been down for years. I hope he is OK, though. (Maybe Virgil will know?)
Links to where I snatched these from:
The white plastic handle
Texalium Fiber (and wife's paint job)
It's funny, I haven't looked at these pics in years and I just realized how much I "stole"/got inspired by them - but I forgot the origin in the meanwhile;-).
Thanks Mizalo!
BTW, the white plastic in the first pic is Utileplast which seems to be the same as Polymorph or Shapelock but I don't know how he has gotten it so smooth. I reckon he must have used filler and paint before that pic cuz the Shapelock I have played around with does not have a fine surface like that.
Now you have inspired me to do something with the handle on my Sten.
I hate the Sten handle. I will let you know how it works out.
KC
The Sten is a good candidate - and it shouldn't be too difficult to make it detachable, either.
I have a short Sten, too, but just did the quick Polymorh/Shapelock thing on that one.
Shoot, I thought the pix were here - they showed on my laptop but I just cleared my local cache and none of them are:-(
Photo bucket it is then as I like the embed in between text.
[EDIT - just put them all back in via Photobucket now]
Dunno how I missed that, I did a search.
No way to use the attachment function and place the image in line instead of just at the end?
I ended up with a crazy merry-go-round to do this which consisted of first attaching, then saving, then copy pasting the link, then embedding the link, then saving, then deleting the attached pics and then saving...
I kinda dislike the extra step of having to go somewhere external to host pics. Also, I see a lot of old posts on various forums have lost their images cuz they were hosted elsewhere.
This is where I am at now, just a quick test fit - it is not glued in place yet:
What is left is to sand it down and give it some top coat.
Also, I have been pondering different solutions for attaching a float line to the handle.
I thought about making a tube from the underside to the orginal Mirage stub, and thread some Dyneema through there. Or attach a sort of stringer to the stub and let it exit at the bottom of the handle.
I also sourced a few SS eyebolts and I could get a U-bolt and fix either one on the flat underside of the grip.
But I think I will drop all these ideas and go even simpler.
As mentioned earlier, I am positively surprised by the strength of the CF grip.
So, the plan now is to just drill a hole straight through the rear, lower part of the handle. The inside here would be filled with chopped CF and epoxy - which I also plan to use as structural glue to secure the grip on the remains for the stock handle
I don't see the grip breaking in two even with a strong pull on the float line - the risk is the whole grip coming off the stub. But with the shape of the stub as it is, and perhaps a few strategically drilled holes in it, I am pretty sure, the grip will lock in firmly once the epoxy glue joints and core has cured.
After having glued in the grip, I will fill the empty spaces in the handle with either syntactic foam (another trick I picked up from Tin Man and Griswold) or 2K PU foam.
After having tried the 12K sleeve, I got my hands on a sample of 6K sleeve and I think, for this part, 6K is the best compromise between thickness and pliability of the fabric. 3K would drape even better, but I would need more layers. And 12K was just a tad too stiff.
I used the same technique as before - tacking down the dry sleeve with spray glue and then adding the epoxy afterwards.
After the initial room temp cure over night, I post-cured it in the oven for 4 hours at 80C. The latter served two purposes. First, it melts out the wax and second, it makes the laminate stronger. (Check your resin system's specs for post-curing at elavated temps, as it differs from system to system).
In the oven with the wax floating out:
In all its beauty;-):
The hollow inside of the grip:
The grip weighs about 38 grams (1.34 ounces):
It is incredibly strong. I "tested" it with 70kgs on it by standing on its side and noticed no flex at all.
After tidying up the wax grip a tad with a scalpel, it was time to actually do some carbon fiber work (finally)!
This shape is not at all easy to lay up on. Just too many abrupt changes in its lines for the fiber to accommodate, so I knew I needed the most pliable fabric I could get.
I immediately gave up on the regular plain and twill weaves and started out with some uni-directional which was barely OK.
BTW, I vacuum bagged the part as using tape or shrink wrap for compression wouldn't have worked because of the concave areas.
First pic is after the first layer of uni-directional. Not great, with some creases and slipping of the fiber but this was before I got the sleeves:
But then, just a few days before Xmas, Santa got me some pretty socks;-)
These are braided sleeve samples and immediately, I knew they were the better option, but I was still not there. The thinner 3K sample was not big enough in diameter though so I never got to use that and the thicker 12K sleeve, though perfect in size, was almost too stiff to fully follow the contours. But still, it was better than the uni, so I went ahead with the 12K sleeve.
It is so much easier to "lay up" the sleeve. Really makes a huge difference. I mist the grip with spray glue, then insert the sleeve over a tube which fits over the grip and pull the tube out as I lay down the sleeve:
Here it is in the vacuum bag:
And out of the bag with the layer of 12K sleeve:
My lamination work is not amazing by any means, I had a few places where the fiber slid and creased but structural it should hold up just fine.
With the PINK silicone mold done I could get to work on the wax core.
I don't have any pics of pouring the wax, but before melting it, it looks like this. Small pellets that melt around 65C (149F) and are reusable:
And with an AA cell for scale (though it comes in blocks, too):
The process is pretty simple, you melt, then you pour and then you wait. And since the silicone mold is not conducting much heat it takes quite a while for the wax to set.
But once it did, this is how it all come out:
And one with the "plug handle" and the stock handle:
Now, this is where I F'ed up...
The clay needs to be baked at around 135C (275F) for 30 mins (slight variations depending on the brand). But that messed with the foam which either expanded or imploded - prolly both in that order. So, I had the tab on the top collapse and I had the middle part of the clay crack wide open.
But I soldiered on and fixed those issues with some cyano glue, putty and sanding runs.
At this point, it had become obvious that the shape I would end up with would not work in a normal two-piece solid mold. The concave undercuts of the grip would simply get stuck in the mold. The solution was to make a flexible silicone mold.
But that was not the whole answer as it would probably not work to use a flexible mold to make the CF grip in. The missing piece of the puzzle was found right here on this forum from Tin Man's amazing Lost Wax barrel project.
So, now the method had become:
1). Make a plug (the custom grip)
2). Take a flexible silicone mold off of it
3). Pour a lost wax grip in the silicone mold
4). Laminate carbon fiber onto the wax grip
5). Melt out the wax from the carbon fiber grip
6). Mount the carbon grip on the handle itself
But let's get some pix up here to go with all these words.
Here is the handle after I had poured the first half of the silicone mold:
And after the second half had been poured:
And finally, after demolding:
And yes, I know what you are all thinking: There is just not enough pink in the world of spearfishing! I, for my part, is trying to do something about that:-)
PS. Some of you might have noticed that the left, lower mold half has a lot of bubbles in it while the other has none. Reason is that I de-gassed the second batch of silicone by flicking a quick vacuum chamber together and hooking it up to my vacuum pump.
(Let me know, if any of you want me to elaborate on that part or the vacuum bagging for the CF laminate.)
I knew I wanted an anatomically shaped handle to fit my hand exactly. I find them sexy, haha! I know some people are against them as they don't work well "backwards", but this is what I wanted.
I also wanted the handle to end up lighter and/or more buoyant than stock as the Mirage is too heavy as is. Also, I like to fool around with carbon fiber, so a sort of plan was hatched.
I started out by sawing off a big chunk of the original grip and then built it up with various materials. The "various" meaning, I strayed and F'ed up a handful of times... Early on, I harbored hopes that I could just cover the custom shaped grip in carbon and that would be it, done!
But all the clay I added, even on top of a lightweight XPS foam core, made the handle way too heavy. So, I switched to an approach where I would use the custom grip I was making as a plug to have a mold taken off of.
Sawed-off Mirage!;-):
The grip was built on foam core with poly clay (AKA FIMO clay) as I still thought I might have kept it as is with a cover of CF:
When shaping custom grips in clay, Shapelock or putty remember to wear the glove, you would normally wear. I wore a 2mm one for tropical waters. Also, I wore a latex glove on top of the neoprene one as both Shapelock and the clay stick to the neoprene, but it doesn't stick to the latex:
This is a work in progress but wanted to get the thread started.
I have a sort of build log over on Deeperblue but it has tons of babbling so I will try to keep it a bit more to the point here.
I have fallen madly in love with Mares' old pneumatic design The Mirage.
The Mirage is a special pneumatic, with some pretty smart features. I will get into that a later point and for now just focus on one of the things I did not like about the gun: The Handle... (drum roll!).
(Here seen with a Salvimar Vuoto vacuum muzzle)
The Handle - yes, it certainly has to be capitalized since The Handle was a defining part of the gun with its ultra swept-back grip reminiscent of a target pistol. It is certainly special and some would say beautiful, but after having shot it for a while I realized the grip angle really did not suit me.
To cut a very long story somewhat short, I found that with a lot of time in the water, I could get used to the grip angle and make it work and place my shots well.
But I don't spear regularly - only on vacations - and the first few days (or on hurried/instinctive) shots, I found out I always shot high.
A side note here, an actioncam in slow motion mode is great for self-diagnosing stuff like this.
Coming to terms with this, I could see only one way forward. I had to commit gun sacrilege and chop that iconic grip off and make a custom one.
Here is where the road starting taking so many twists and turns that I will leave out most of the mishaps of the adventure and try to tell this tale in a more sober way than it was living through it;-)
Gentlemen you have a great thread going here! It needs it's own spot so others can access it.
Yeah, I already promised Don Paul to get it going - so, I better, haha.
I have just been waiting as my project is still very much in the works. But let me get some of what I have up here tomorrow and then I can just C+P this recent info into that thread, too:-).
So i looked up the schematics if the mirage. It has 2 barrels inside ito help in the loading process. So it is possible to change the length? what about the Sten, possible to change it to a 130cm?
Yup, the smaller barrel of the Mirage does the magic. Since it has a smaller diameter there is less force on the piston (10mm vs. 13mm for the "shooting barrel"). What you do when loading a Mirage, is to first insert the spear into the smaller barrel and then pump 5 times. This moves a lot of the air in the gun into the forward chamber. Then you move the spear back up into the regular shooting barrel - but since a lot of the air has been moved, there is much less pressure in that part of the gun and you can easily load the shooting barrel.
Flick the power regulator switch back to open the port between the chambers and get access to all the goodness of (up to) 40 bar;-).
The lenght of all pneumatic guns are only determined by the length of the inner barrel(s) and the outer tank. And the spear, of course. The rest of the hardware is exactly the same. Actually, the power regulator bulkhead is the same distance from the handle whether the gun is 55cm or 135cm...
So, to make your Sten longer, you would just need a longer tank (100cm app. to get to 130cm), longer inner barrel and a new spear.
The Sten actually used to be made, long time ago, in 130cm and some are out there in 140cm, too.
But Mares does not make the inner barrels this long anymore - but you can use one from Seac for an Asso 135. You would need to cut down the first 2-3 inches as the front thread is different on the Seacs. And then you would need to re-thread the front plus cut at least one new o-ring groove, possibly two (if you have a power regulator bulkhead in your gun). For anyone good on a lathe this is kids work.
The Seac barrels have the trigger sear in the right place and the rear pump inlet valve thread is the same. There are some notches on the tail end of the barrel that may need to be cut to fit the anti-rotation plastic stubs inside your handle. These may differ from Seac to Mares.
So, the process is the same for my Mirage, I just need one extra barrel than for a standard pneumatic.
Another option is to source a spare barrel for the 130cm Salvimar airguns - which is even cheaper than the Seac. But I don't know if the sear is in the same position as on the Mares and Seac or if any of the other measurements fit with the Mares. Though the front thread should. I have never taken a Salvimar apart - haven't had the chance yet.
That said, the Salvimar Predathor Vuoto seems the best value pneumatic out there. Comes in 130cm and supposedly comes with a proper SS spear and not the galvanized crap guns used to come with. It should also ship with a reel.
Maybe that's the easier route.
I don't know how easy it would be to find these barrels in the US, but I know a shop in Italy which can help you out.
If you are incredibly lucky, you would be able to find an old 130cm Mares replacement barrel and then it should be very close to a clean swap (bar the tank).
Got you on the MaCO2 being a CO2 gun:-). An upgraded Pelletier, so to speak.
I bet it is sweet with an 8mm shaft in place of the rail road track it shipped with.
It's very cool that that gun exists for people who suffer from a disability that keeps them from using/loading big guns but who still have the skill and wish to hunt in the blue.
The category under is any gun that will let you partition the loading effort. So, as you say, even a big band gun with multiple thinner rubbers - or, for a pneumatic, the ingenious design of the old Mirage:-)
I am in the process of making a custom Mirage in 130cm. They only ever came in 84 and 104cm and I want to simplify my traveling gun locker to one Mirage 84 and one 130:-). I have teased it before and when I have all the parts, I will indeed make a thread about it. I am getting there but the logistics of sourcing speargun parts aren't easy when you live in China.
