Yet Another Travelframe

Yet Another Travel Frame
By David Bewick


I have been playing around with the idea of buying or making a travel frame for my Evo, mainly to reduce weight and size for air travel. Although I have looked in some envy at the various lovely and shiny options that have appeared over the last few years, none quite met my requirements, so I have started with a blank piece of paper and made my own.

Firstly my requirement was for a warm water, holiday diving solution. I didn’t particularly need overhead protection or the ability to strap on lots of heavy cylinders. As an Evo owner I’m aware that not all operators who provide rebreather cylinders have 2lt ones available, so I needed my frame to cope with 2lt or 3lt cylinders.


I’m also a little strange in that I like the AP harness and wing and decided to use as much of the standard kit as possible. In the end the 3 pieces of the frame replace the box, with the only other additional kit required being a second pair of tank straps. Everything else, including the two bolts that hold the harness, wing and frame together, are from the original. No part of the Evo is modified, so you can put it back to its normal setup fairly easily.


As you can see from the photos the frame is made up of 3 pieces of 3mm ali sheet. The 2 cross pieces are identical. I don’t have the facilities to cut and bend the sheet myself, so I asked for help from John Routley (Narked @ 90) who gave me some excellent advice and got the job done in no time at all. I decided against cam belts for the cylinders, relying instead on the standard Velcro straps. I think these are sufficiently secure like this, particularly when the first stages are connected, but if you don’t then you will probable need to increase the plate strength to cope with the pressure. I would estimate 6mm ali or 3mm steel would allow this.


Unlike in the photo, all the hoses sit comfortably between the frame and the wing. You can even thread them through the back of the cylinder straps for extra security. I have also added a small plastic block for the scrubber to sit own (B&Q’s best shelf holding plastic).


I have yet to try this out in the water, but am pretty happy so far, the plates weigh 1 kg altogether, so there is a good saving there, and it makes packing in a suitcase trivial. Before anyone asks the obvious I know the cylinders in the photos are different sizes, I shot them this way to show both a 2lt and 3lt in place.

I got the plates from John without drill holes so that I could play. The holes are 1 inch in on the cross pieces and down from the back piece, with the second back piece hole a standard 11 inches further down. On mine the holes are countersunk, as I’m using the standard bolts, you make not need to do this is using a different fastener.


I will be getting a second one made up for the wife, and I think John would be open to producing more if this solution suits anyone else.

I haven't tried an Insp scrubber, but it would probably work with little or no changes.


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