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Orca waist harness mod


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I slightly modified my Orca OR-37 waist harness and I thought it might help others looking for a similar harness setup. My apologies if this has been discussed already. I realize too waist harnesses in general are not for everyone. recently bought a OR-30 and waist harness combo. Transferred all my gear, and I felt it did ok around the house but did not perform as well on the first day of a real job. quickly I learned the design of the harness points were working against me. However I love the upper body freedom when booming and it seemed comfortable to me resting on my hips vs pulling on my shoulders and back. I wanted to find a way to make it work rather than going back to my original versaflex.

 

The first pic attached shows how the top and bottom clips are on the same nylon strap. When you get it tight and in the right position, things start off good. Then the bottom strap eventually slides towards the top and your bag leans forward - no matter how tight you pull the straps. Also, the points to connect the harness on the bag tend to get pulled funny and loosen zippers, and also do not allow you unzip and open side panels when hooked to your harness. My solution was to put larger carabiners directly on the corners of the aluminum frame of the OR-30, and make both top and bottom straps attach to the D rings on the side of the harness. Found the carabiners in the marine section of an outdoor store. A few boyscout knots and some heatshrink. color coded with heat shrink to decipher top and bottom clips. It does take a little more time hooking and unhooking, but I feel the trade off for a better 4 point adjustable harness on longer run-n-gun days pays off. when you get everything comfortably locked in place, it stays in place.

 

-Ken

 

 

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I'd love to see a waist belt rigid enough to let a bag hang on it, as in if the bag would have like rods (think about a babybjörn) that go into two holes of the waist belt. That way you could just really lift the bag off instead of having to clip and pull straps all the time. I did send this idea over to K-tek but Dave.'s probably very busy with everything else so... If anyone wants to realize it then please do!

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  • 2 months later...

Sadly i've ditched my waist harness...for now. It worked great at first until my first long day with it run n gun. I think my bag although super compact for all i can do from it, still a bit too heavy for all day use. Total bummer. I have the orca full harness now. Comfy but i am unhappy with the upper body constraint that the waist harness releaved me of. Wish i could find an in between. I can still use it occasionally tho. Gonna try again this afternoon after using the full harness this morning. Anyone else modify or come up with any upgrades to waist harnesses?

On another note, I know this is subjective but long term Is it possible the waist harness can put too much stress on the lower back and maybe i should just deal with the full harness?

-Ken

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Olle...I'm kicking things around. New things are coming in our world. Our upcoming harness and waist belt address the issues brought up here. We've been beta testing our stuff for a while to make sure things are good over the long haul. We don't want to have to have people mod our harness or waist belt if we can help it.

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dave i am standing by willing to beta test!

 

tried my waist only harness after lunch and only lasted about 1/2 hour before i switched back. dont know the problem was the harness so much as my belt buckle getting pressed into me on top of just eating lunch. i tried lifting the harness above my hips but then it felt like it was too much pull on my lower back. finding a way to rest on the hips is key. i LOVE booming reaching up high without a top-half harness counteracting my movements and pulling on my shoulders. at this point i am willing to try anything new when it comes to harnesses. baby bjorn idea is genius!

 

-Ken 

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