The LOVE Of Bolt Snaps | Deep Dive

hi everybody and welcome to simply scuba and the deep dive today's deep dive is taking a closer look at one of my favorite pieces of scuba diving equipment the bolt snap as for sheer numbers i have more bolt snaps on my person when i'm diving than any other piece of equipment and that's because they're just so darn useful and better than a lot of the alternatives on the market when divers first start out we're usually most exposed to carabiners as quick clips to attach things to yourself so you don't drop and lose them but carabiners are pretty dangerous for scuba divers for climbers and hikers a carabiner is a practical little clip but for scuba divers they're actually pretty bad the first thing is is that they're just not made for marine environments a lot of carabiners are aluminium which means they're nice and light but it still means that they need to be washed much more thoroughly otherwise it just corrodes and it pits in sea water but more importantly carabiners don't need you to consciously do something to open up that gate and let something in they will clip onto anything which means that you can just swim against the line and not even know it or ghost gear and just get yourself caught only this time unlike getting snagged on something you can't swim backwards because that won't help because you're now clipped onto that line so scuba divers prefer bolt snaps they require a positive action to open up that gate but they do come in lots of different shapes and styles and sizes because they all have different uses so let's dive a little deeper and take a closer look at bolt snaps so the first thing is that the material that bolt snaps is made from so a bolt snap for scuba diving they're typically either made from brass or steel steel is by far better than brass for a whole range of reasons brass is good because it's more resistant to corrosion and it's a cheaper metal it's also a little bit lighter as well but it is a soft metal so they do bend fairly easily steel bolt snaps are usually the best but not all bolt snaps are made the same you get cheap nasty bolt snaps and you get decent bolt snaps steel bolt snaps are made from marine grade steel so they're pretty rust resistant and they're nice and strong as well so they don't tend to bend unless you put a lot of force on them you'll often get a brass bolt snap as just a free one when you buy a spool or something but to be honest i just throw them straight in a drawer and i never use them i just swap it out from one of my nice steel bolt snaps or actually invest in a decent bolts uh steel bolt snap before i use a brass one i'm somewhat of a bolt snap snob that way right at one end you will have what's called the hook uh the hook is just a j shaped hook uh which is meant to catch whatever you are clipping so they're typically fairly small because you'll only ever really click one thing with each bolt snap you don't tend to clip a bolt snap onto multiple things and we don't clip things onto particularly large lines neither with a bolt snap you use something else for that like a shackle closing the hook is at the gate the gate is what makes bolt snaps different to carabiners instead of a swing spring mechanism bolt snap gates are a straight piston mechanism that default in the closed position so no matter how hard you push on that gate as an inanimate object to try and get in it will not open to be able to open the gate you have the trigger so the trigger is attached onto the gate and the piston as well and for divers these are pretty sort of chunky the actual trigger itself so that we can use them even with big chunky gloves underneath the gate and the piston on the inside of the body of the bolt snap there will be an internal spring that keeps the gate closed it's important to give these a very good wash and dry after your dive to keep salt crystals and rust from forming so the spring doesn't fall so give them a good wash a good dry and it will just last for years down the body of the bolt snap it will just be a straight section of metal and on the other end it will either have a mirror hook on the far end that makes it into a double ender or it will have an eye just a loop that swivels on a single ender the size and shape of the eye depends on what the bolt snap is intended for but we'll get into that in a moment so double enders as the name suggests they have two hooks one on either ends and these are great for attaching two things together temporarily double enders are used for things like spools or sort of quick attached tools where you want to clip a spool onto a d-ring quickly but you don't always want to have that bolt snap physically fixed onto your spool for all time because that would just make winding your spool just hard so you have a spring gate on either end double enders tend to be fairly uniform they just come in different sizes the only thing that really changes on a double ender is just the length and the overall size of the hook small double enders they're fine for warm water use um they're smaller which makes them a lot neater and they'll have a nice small neat little trigger but um trying to use one of these as a really small double ender whilst cold water diving with big gloves is just fiddly and pretty hard for cold water diving or where you're just wearing clunky gloves you want a large double ender with a long trigger for your thumb to actually get hold of so if in doubt with double enders the bigger the better really single enders are more permanent uh so single end bolt snaps are made to be tied to something to act as an attachment point either on an accessory like a torch so that you can clip it off somewhere safe when you're not using it or a hose so that it stays where you want it to instead of using some other kind of hose retainer small bolt snaps with teeny tiny little eyes so these are made for tools and second stages you don't want a big huge clunky bolt snap attached to a small diddy torch or onto your second stage because it will just hang a little bit too far away from your body if something's clipped off onto a d-ring and if it's on a second stage a huge uh bolt snap is just gonna get in the way so you want something nice and neat something nice and small and compact slightly larger bolt snaps uh with a fairly compact eye still these are again for cold water use so it's just a little bit bigger it's a more sensible size so you can use it with thick gloves a bolt snap with a large but thin eye so these are made for light things that need controlling like your spg hose uh the eye will be large enough to be able to fit a finger through which lets you get hold of that point and the bolt snap to move it around easily and it's much more intuitive to be able to clip it off onto a d-ring the largest bolt snaps which have a big thick round eye so these are made for heavy items like cylinders so you can side mount that cylinder or you can clip the cylinder off onto a fixed point and come back to it later you can still get a finger through that eye but the eye itself is made from a thicker metal for just extra weight of your tank so bolt snaps aren't perfect so they're better than the carabiner for scuba diving but they do need to be used properly so the first problem with bolt snaps is that most divers clip a bolt snap to a spool like this when they first start out because it's kind of the most obvious way to clip off isn't it but bolt snaps can undo themselves just like this when they're unattended and this is why we clip them off onto small caliber things like d-rings because as soon as it's against something big and flat if it twists in the wrong direction it can just let go if you're going to clip a bolt snap to a spool then the preferred technique is to have a small section of the line through one of the holes of the spool uh allow about six inches or so of line and then clip the bolt snap onto it like this and then give it a good twist and then let it go back through the gate that way the bolt snap can never twist on the hard body of the spool and open it all by itself it requires you the diver to physically open that gate so there were bolt snap i was going to do a deep dive on just clips in general but there's so many out there and bolt snaps kind of deserve their own deep dive as i said earlier there are bolt snaps and there are bolt snaps the important thing is is not to go cheap when you're sort of buying bolt snaps because you'll find a cheap bolt snap okay it might be a couple quid cheaper but it has a really raspy action which will just annoy you and actually snag and on a dive if you're wearing thick gloves you just won't be able to use it so it's worth investing a little bit extra and getting a decent bold snap most bolt snaps are a fairly generic design with that kind of swooped back but there are a couple of brands like xdeep who are really starting to stir up the classic bolt snap design and improving the ease of use so keep an eye out because the small differences and improvements in bolt snaps are definitely worth it and i always keep at least one spare double ender on me at all times just in case because i've dropped things before and it's always useful just to have a spare double ender but let us know in the comments below how much you appreciate a good bolt snap thank you for watching and of course safe diving you

Channel: Simply Scuba

Views: 14,849

Keywords: simplyscuba, simply scuba, Simply, Scuba, Internet Fusion Group, Scuba Diving, Scuba Advice, Advice Videos, 20/12/2020, The LOVE Of Bolt Snaps | Deep Dive, The, LOVE, Of, Bolt, Snaps, Boltsnaps, Bolt Snaps, Deep, Dive, Deep Dive, the humble boltsnap, the humble bolt snap, list, list video, top 5, top 10, scuba diving, scuba diving - interest

Id: ia2k4EED8WI

Length: 10min 53sec (653 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 20 2020