Reels

[Mark Chase]

Originally Posted by PBrown

Sorry Mark, but that doesn't make sense. An excellent bit of kit that breaks? The site I linked to earlier has them at £39 and its simply the first one I found with a picture on it. I'm sure you could get them cheaper if you hunted around.

cheers
Paul

By which i meen they work briliently. By far the best compact design of handle spool and ratchet out there. The McMahoon is fantastic but massive. I spent £125 on a Custom Divers ratchet reel and that was rubbish. I went back to the Beaver very quickly. I also tried a Manta a McMahoon a KT friction reel and a crap thin with a T piece spool release which kept jaming.

I gave them all up and went back to the Beaver.

Last one I bought was £18 brand new off Ebay. They usually last two or three years. Carrying stages can result in the side of the spool getting smashed on the boat due to careless sitting down or rough conditions. (stage crushes reel)

So sure they break but at that price who cares. If I broke / lost my Pathfinder Id be very pissed off.

If you want the same reel as the Beaver (actually it better as it offers free running as well) that wont ever break, get the Kent Tooling SS version.
If they did a dural version of the Beaver it would be my ultimate reel. The KT one is built proof but heavy. I will find the time to drill another 500 holes in my KT reel than ill use that all the time and stop buying cheep beaver of Flebay.

ATB

Mark

[neilh]

Originally Posted by Mark Chase

ill ... stop buying cheep beaver of Flebay.

(Need a coat as well with the weather here at the moment!)

[PBrown]

Originally Posted by Mark Chase

By which i meen they work briliently. By far the best compact design of handle spool and ratchet out there.

Agreed, except that I trimmed the handle down so I could slide one into my dry-suit pocket.

The McMahoon is fantastic but massive.

McMahon do 2 types of reel, the bloody huge one & a compact. I'm pretty sure that the Beaver one is a direct copy of the McMahon compact, just made with cheaper materials and not so much care.

I gave them all up and went back to the Beaver.

I gave them up and went for a pathfinder

cheers,
Paul

[Bardo]

Originally Posted by nickb

albeit slightly modified.

Best 'modification' you can make to one of those is to add a nice bin-shaped storage container to it - preferably one that gets emptied by the local council at least one a fortnight.

Beaver reels are sh*te - second only to the dog turd that is the AP Valves Buddy pocket reel...

BTW - Despite being of a DIR persuasion, I quite like Kent Tooling reels. If there were to produce a Pathfinder clone with a few enhancements (and it wasn't too damned heavy), I'd invest...

[JasonP]

Originally Posted by PBrown

McMahon do 2 types of reel, the bloody huge one & a compact. I'm pretty sure that the Beaver one is a direct copy of the McMahon compact, just made with cheaper materials and not so much care.

It's bigger then the compact, I think. Size wise about halfway between the big one and the compact.

Jason

[Digger]

Originally Posted by Bardo

Best 'modification' you can make to one of those is to add a nice bin-shaped storage container to it - preferably one that gets emptied by the local council at least one a fortnight.

Beaver reels are sh*te - second only to the dog turd that is the AP Valves Buddy pocket reel...

BTW - Despite being of a DIR persuasion, I quite like Kent Tooling reels. If there were to produce a Pathfinder clone with a few enhancements (and it wasn't too damned heavy), I'd invest...

You've not seen their friction reel with Goodman handle then? I asked John for one to replace the S handle I used to have, and it's far more functional, adjustable, easily controlled, all SS, and you can get 150m of line on a big one, or use a narrower one as required. Very nice piece of kit. I'm sure it wouldn't even be a decent sized modification to add a small knurled screw to the plate so that it screws down on the spool like a Halcyon/Salvo type reel, it would screw down on the face not the edge, but would work just the same.

Digs.

[Mark Chase]

[quote]

Originally Posted by PBrown

Agreed, except that I trimmed the handle down so I could slide one into my dry-suit pocket.

Like this you mean

McMahon do 2 types of reel, the bloody huge one & a compact. I'm pretty sure that the Beaver one is a direct copy of the McMahon compact, just made with cheaper materials and not so much care.

I have only used the big one which is a monster

I gave them up and went for a pathfinder

cheers,
Paul

Path finder is defo the best line laying reel I have ever used. Its an OK smb reel. But if i were forced to choose between the two and made to only use one for all my diving. It would defo be the pathfinder.

ATB

Mark

[John Touhig]

[quote=Mark Chase;850662]

21m is a compromise depth for sure, not a problem on a 30 -35m dive but what would you do on a 50-60m dive? Would you drift off doing your deep stops and expect the boat to see your bag when you sent it up from the 21m stop half a mile from the wreck site?

Would you be happy holding a stop at 30m without a surface marker in busy shipping lanes like Dover ?

Have a chat with the boat skippers and see what they think.

Personally I deploy from 60m or from the wreck, which ever is shallower. Any wreck past 70m I wouldn't dive without a deco station anyway so the most I come off the wreck is 10m in about 1.5min's so I wont drift far

ATB

Mark

OK, I'm not going to enter the rights and wrongs of the whole DIR debate that seems to be a theme in this thread (maybe I'm mis-reading)... Just a couple of my own thoughts...


For line laying on a wreck I use a Pathfinder, great reel once you've reloaded the line after you bought it.. .

For dSMB deployment I use a 50m McMahon (the baby one) and it's never failed me. The only grip I have is that I have to pull on it during deco to ensure that my dSMB is vertical on the surface. Why is this an issue? We did a 65m dive last year and surfaced in a 4ft swell, once I de-kitted we were still missing 1 diver, only by the fact he was pulling his reel down enabled us to see his dSMB in the swell (at the time he was 1/2 mile away).

Paul (The Duck) uses a KT 125m stainless jobbie and its heavy enough that he can let it go and it still cocks his dSMB. Great bit of kit.

Using a spool is great as long as you're prepared to hang on to it and stay slightly negative so the bag stays upright, if not, your not going to be very popular with the skippers I've dived with and you run the very real chance of having a LONG swim home...


Back to my original point, the Pathfinder is a solid bit of kit. Holds enough line for even the most adventurous wreck penetration. However I have managed to Dremel the "H" of the handle so no one knows that I bought a bit of Halcyon kit...



John

[Bardo]

Originally Posted by Digger

You've not seen their friction reel with Goodman handle then? I asked John for one to replace the S handle I used to have, and it's far more functional, adjustable, easily controlled, all SS, and you can get 150m of line on a big one, or use a narrower one as required. Very nice piece of kit.

On that I have no doubt - as I said, I quite like some of the Kent Tooling reels. They're solid, very well built and functional.