My Sf is way out of my homemade harness's league (1 Viewer)

My Sf's are way out of my homemade harness's league

Ok, so don't laugh, when I was living in Panama I really wanted a RickYoung harness. Unfortunately getting deliveries to Bocas del Toro can be problematic at the best of times. So, being bored one day I made up one from scratch, it was functional but needed work.
Enter my new baby ( Victory SF) where I too late found the Zeiss harness I had ordered nice but too hot for the tropics. Being handy I fell back on whipping up another new improved homemade RY style harness till I could order the real deal.

I find I like my hand made contraption so much that for now I've decided to stick with that rather than order the RY version. Yes I know the RY is ridiculously affordable but I live on a sailboat half the year which means A. I'm cheap and B. all the parts are squirrelled away in lockers anyway. It seemed a shame not to do something.
If you look closely at the photo you can see the top quality hand stitched seamanlike craftsmanship. My story which I'm sticking to, is that the boat was bouncing around just a little when I made it.
To be honest I'll probably buy the RY harness one day but for now I'm buoyed up by my overinflated sense of accomplishment.
Plus, now I'm the coolest kid on the trails and all the other kids are jealous and want one. Even the ornithologists talk to me now ;-)

Cheers,
Bryan

It looks like lots of shoelaces, does it work very well ?

Jerry

Hi Jerry,
Maybe we can call it the shoelace bino harness. As long as I don't trip on it I'm good with the name.
It does works well though. Its the same concept as the RY version but with a small rectangular rubber sheet at the back instead of the nifty button adjustment thinghy on the RY. The RY is better but the rubber sheet is what I had so I made it work. It is easy to adjust and soft on the back
The bungee cord diameter on the version shown is a bit too thick and therefore doesn't have as much spring as I'd prefer. I'm going to swap it out for some thinner stuff someday.

The original one I made back in Bocas del Toro used 3 mil double braid Dacron which worked ok but it wasn't as comfortable as the newer bungee version. For that first one I used a double alpine knot for the adjustment at the back which worked surprisingly well.
Cheers,
Bryan

Well, that is good to hear, I have only limited experience with harnesses, the regular strap kind.
I am in different part of the world here, we just had 20" of snow with blizzard winds 10 days ago.
We do have our birds, had 8 whooping cranes over my farm last week, and seeing bald eagles
regularly on their migration south.

Thanks for posting.

Jerry

Jerry
I like a harness more than the neck strap but the latter is quicker and easier to get on and off. One nice thing about the RY style harness is that in a pinch they can be used as just a neck strap.
When you see a special bird from the lunch table its much faster getting a neck strap on. A harness takes too long and messing with it can lose you your bird.
Seeing even one Whooping Crane would be a great day. They're high on my must see list. I miss winter birding up in BC. Best time of year for ducks and raptors.
Cheers,
Bryan

NDhunter said:

I am in different part of the world here, we just had 20" of snow with blizzard winds 10 days ago.

Jerry

Click to expand...

You are always welcome to bring your weather to Los Angeles, hot and burning fires is getting boring..

Omid said:

You are always welcome to bring your weather to Los Angeles, hot and burning fires is getting boring..

Click to expand...

Rainy season here in CR. If I can get it through mail and customs I'll try to send you some. There's no duty right?
B.

Excellent! I'm a big fan of the RJ harness, but your version is at least as good!

You are using Peak Design conectors, right?
Actually I got rid of the RJ connectors and the metal key ring, and connected the rubber cord directly with a simple short loop to the binocular. It's simple, and makes the bin even less dangling as the rubber cord is almost directly attached to the binocular. You can't easly disconnect the binocular from the harness with this, but I have never felt the need to do so, as the harness takes up so little space...

Hi Dalat,

I like em too. They're much more comfortable to wear for long periods of time in the tropics.

Yes those are the Peak connectors. They're well made and positive but I find them a shade clunky (read biggish) and I have occasional problems re-connecting them. They have to be lined up correctly for the disk to slide into its chamber. When out in the field that can be a bit of a hassle.

I like your solution with the modification using the utility loops you've linked to. I considered going that route but the Peaks were sitting on a rack in the store in front of me so went with them.
I don't like metal connectors or rings attached to binoculars or cameras so either the Utility loops or the Peak connectors with their loops are a nice improvement. Cow hitches are certainly the way to go.

The Zeiss SF's came with metal split rings and cable ties of all things which seems a tad cheesy to me. Don't get me wrong I love cable ties and they're all over the boat but I think Zeiss could have come up with something a bit more elegant. Minor nit of course as I love the binos.
Cheers,
Bryan

As I was asked (by pm) about the details of the connection, here some pics.

The last one just to show how it looks when packing the bin away, definitely no need to remove the harness.

Dalat,
Nice idea to show the details. Prompted me to throw my set up into the mix.
I think your kit may pack up smaller and you're right that theres no need to remove the harness.
You can see in the next photo how the Peak connectors work.
Cheers,
Bryan