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spinning front line mod for old swivel

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ronnie
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Re: spinning front line mod for old swivel

Postby ronnie » Mon Apr 15, 2013 11:49 am

AndKite wrote:
ronnie wrote:
That's a good point.

The black lines are just a pair of pigtails I used for the photo to illustrate the way things will be connected - they are not the front lines. All of the lines are just for photo demo as I will have to trial different lines to make sure they all flow through and return and dont wear too much.

I have also opened out the hole through the eye in an elongated, slanted fashion so the line will have a more direct slide through it. I also ground slight recesses into the black plastic of the swivel so the front line can go directly from the eye to the central swivel hole.

If I am not completely sure it will work well, I will just have to use the original bar layout which will require flagging to one front line with a leash that hangs underneath the control bar.
Ok good. Make sure u have as few connection points as possible running through the cable eye when releasing.

Check this site out. my new favourite.
http://www.animatedknots.com/brummeldemo/index.php?
This method is good for kitelines.
http://www.animatedknots.com/brummel/index.php?

Also, be careful not weakening the plastic too much, that was most likely designe to use as little material as posible, so if you take some more out, you may end up with something that breaks.

Good luck, have fun and be safe =)
The swivel seemed well beefy and swivels very nicely at the moment, so I think it will be OK. I hope they redesign it so it can be used to flag to one front line.
Thanks for your advice - I'll take it on board.

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Re: spinning front line mod for old swivel

Postby tswierkocki » Mon Apr 15, 2013 5:27 pm

I have never seen or used one but this might do the trick:

http://switchkites.com/warehouse_comp/p ... ucts_id=64

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Re: spinning front line mod for old swivel

Postby ronnie » Mon Apr 15, 2013 5:38 pm

tswierkocki wrote:I have never seen or used one but this might do the trick:

http://switchkites.com/warehouse_comp/p ... ucts_id=64

It's a Switch bar that I am modding, so I already have that. The bar flags to 2 front lines, but by using a leash under the bar I could use an existing O-Shit option to flag to one front line. It would not have an unspin system for the front line leash though.

The Switch bar does have a below the bar swivel, so there is also the option to not use any above the powerline swivel and have a no swivel single front line flagout above the powerline, provided the front line/flagout line connection will pass through the under the bar swivel.

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Re: spinning front line mod for old swivel

Postby tswierkocki » Mon Apr 15, 2013 8:39 pm

Probably not the advise people want to hear but I got rid of the swivel on my bars a few years ago. I had the old slingshot swivels like in the first picture. They worked well for a while but after my last one broke I just didn't replace it.

I thought it would be a pain not having a swivel but now I either do 2 back to back tricks in opposite directions or downloop the kite to untwist the lines.

Just another option.

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Re: spinning front line mod for old swivel

Postby L0KI » Mon Apr 15, 2013 9:57 pm

tswierkocki wrote:Probably not the advise people want to hear but..
I got rid of the swivel on my bars a few years ago.
I had the old Slingshot swivels like in the first picture.
They worked well for a while but after my last one broke I just didn't replace it.
I thought it would be a pain not having a swivel but now I either do 2 back to back tricks in opposite directions or downloop the kite to untwist the lines.
Just another option.
Similar experiences for me.
The metal swivel in the first post, never really swiveled consistently enough to untwist anything, and often just helped sink your front lines, instead of doing something useful.
The Slingshot "mickey mouse ears" version 2 swivel worked slightly better, then got crusty and worked just as crappy.
My bars in the early days had the two front lines split with a rope leader line splitter.
They never broke without giving a visual clue in plenty of time to replace, in fact I never wore one out.
The below the bar swivel systems seem to work well for me.
Unswiveling front lines is a concern..
But how that coexists with the safety release system, always seems the most important priority.
Last edited by L0KI on Tue Apr 16, 2013 1:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: spinning front line mod for old swivel

Postby Starsky » Tue Apr 16, 2013 3:58 am

ronnie wrote:
Then I drilled a 3/32" hole into the swivel at either side near the bottom of the thickest part of the swivel and put a screw through the cable eye to pin it in place.
The cable eye and screw are A4/316 stainless steel.
I think that is your weakest link. Good steel or not, 3/32 is tiny.

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Re: spinning front line mod for old swivel

Postby ronnie » Tue Apr 16, 2013 9:20 am

Starsky wrote:
ronnie wrote:
Then I drilled a 3/32" hole into the swivel at either side near the bottom of the thickest part of the swivel and put a screw through the cable eye to pin it in place.
The cable eye and screw are A4/316 stainless steel.
I think that is your weakest link. Good steel or not, 3/32 is tiny.
The 3mm hole has to be through the hollow part of the tube so the screw can force it's way through the 3mm hole, so the screw forces its way through the plastic too. The screw is 4mm diameter to the outside of the threads. It may be the weakest point, but I think the front line would be weaker.

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Re: spinning front line mod for old swivel

Postby ronnie » Thu May 16, 2013 7:01 pm

I finished my mod for the Mutiny swivel and although I could get it to flag out, it would not reset automatically because the stopper ball causes too much of a chicane in the line and the front line could get stuck slightly shorter than the other front line.

I was able to get the connections on the flagging/bungee/frontline to go through the under bar swivel once I had flared slightly the ends of the 6mm tube through the swivel.
I spliced loops onto 2.5mm dyneema for the flagging line and used the Slingshot bungee.

So I will do away with the swivel at the bottom of the front lines and rely on the under the bar swivel to manually untwist the centrelines.

As I suggested before, if I was going to do it over again I would buy the Naish Universal swivel, which flags to one front line.

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Re: spinning front line mod for old swivel

Postby bnthere » Fri May 17, 2013 4:44 am

hmmm... looks pretty elaborate, in a simple kind of way.

so why not just drill 2 diagonally angled holes through the sides of the swivel at slightly wider than the line diameter. a knot (like on the end of line connector) is the jampoint on the one side, the loop/loop joint with the flying line and leash line extension is the jampoint on the other. without seeing your swivel i can't tell how thin/weak the plastic looks in various places, of course who really knows how strong any of that stuff is, regardless of what is looks like. hopefully brands are testing that sort of thing properly and not just throwing "nice looking" plastic crap out there. some of us are trust our lives to that stuff afterall.

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Re: spinning front line mod for old swivel

Postby ronnie » Fri May 17, 2013 10:51 am

bnthere wrote:hmmm... looks pretty elaborate, in a simple kind of way.

so why not just drill 2 diagonally angled holes through the sides of the swivel at slightly wider than the line diameter. a knot (like on the end of line connector) is the jampoint on the one side, the loop/loop joint with the flying line and leash line extension is the jampoint on the other. without seeing your swivel i can't tell how thin/weak the plastic looks in various places, of course who really knows how strong any of that stuff is, regardless of what is looks like. hopefully brands are testing that sort of thing properly and not just throwing "nice looking" plastic crap out there. some of us are trust our lives to that stuff afterall.
That was my first thought, but the angles and the bearing don't work out well. You would again get an almost 90 degree 'chicane' for the end of the front line to have to find it's way round.

I've ground grooves in it now so its made it unrealistic to even try it, but what you suggest, with hindsight would have been a better way to go compared to what I tried.

I had bought the Mutiny swivel without checking if it could be modified successfully. It can still work as originally intended so I may find a use for it in future.


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