At last! I've always struggled reaching my valves. Most days simply not being able to, but tonight was the night i spent one and a half hours seriously looking what was causing the problem.
No, i dont want to invert either.
As i'm intending on doing either advanced nitrox or advanced rec trimix, thought it best to get it sorted before any courses start!
It boiled down to a few things:
1. My OMS deluxe harness has quite wide and thick shoulder 'pads'. They are very inflexible and stiff as hard board! I removed them to leave only the 50mm webbing over the shoulders. Improved arm movement generally. Besides, they always got in the way when assembling backplate/harness onto wing.
2. Adjusted band positions. After a bit of playing around found the optimum position. I know people say to have the top band right at the point the cylinder curves away, but i've moved my top band down an inch. Works for me as it moves the cylinders higher.
3. Tried everything on with just T shirt. All ok and could reach valves stood up.
4. Put on drysuit with only T shirt under and I could reach the valves ok after a bit of adjusting and pushing cylinders up. Remember i'm stood up and not laying flat underwater. I'm in my garage sweating my ringer off here!
5. As above but with undersuit on (200g otter). Now, no matter what i did i couldn't reach to grab the valve enough to turn. Only just annoyingly touch it with finger tips. Maybe underwater I could, but no way stood up. So guess i'll only be wearing a thin top under my suit from now on!
Hope this helps or maybe makes people look more closely at their rig if it causes them any bother.