naish swivel

[cleepa]

I have a Wainman V1 bar and a V2 bar. The V1 has the stainless steel mouse ears swivel and the V2 bar has the ceramic swivel. I never did anything to keep either swivel clean. After extended use, I found that the ceramic swivel had basically stopped working, while the mouse ears worked about 50% of the time. So I prefer the mouse ears swivel.

[L0KI]

I have a Wainman V1 bar and a V2 bar. The V1 has the stainless steel mouse ears swivel and the V2 bar has the ceramic swivel. I never did anything to keep either swivel clean. After extended use, I found that the ceramic swivel had basically stopped working, while the mouse ears worked about 50% of the time. So I prefer the mouse ears swivel.

Yup. Nobody's swivel works 100%....which is why kite companies should not bother and just make sure that their chicken loop systems have a good system for untwisting.
Cheaper to not put swivels above and below the bar.
We would all like to pay less for our super over-priced bar systems.

[Laughingman]

Nobody's swivel works 100%....which is why kite companies should not bother and just make sure that their chicken loop systems have a good system for untwisting.
Cheaper to not put swivels above and below the bar.
We would all like to pay less for our super over-priced bar systems.

FYI Naish does not have a below the bar swivel.... so its funny their above the bar swivel sucks as bad as it does... and I can say that with first hand experience...lol

[cleepa]

I have a Wainman V1 bar and a V2 bar. The V1 has the stainless steel mouse ears swivel and the V2 bar has the ceramic swivel. I never did anything to keep either swivel clean. After extended use, I found that the ceramic swivel had basically stopped working, while the mouse ears worked about 50% of the time. So I prefer the mouse ears swivel.

Yup. Nobody's swivel works 100%....which is why kite companies should not bother and just make sure that their chicken loop systems have a good system for untwisting.
Cheaper to not put swivels above and below the bar.
We would all like to pay less for our super over-priced bar systems.

Yep, agreed. When I customised my bar, I got rid of the swivel as there's one below the bar, now. The below the bar one never swivels on its own. Easy enough to solve - I either loop the other way, or I twist the below the bar one by hand. I definitely enjoyed getting rid of that excessively huge ceramic swivel.

[L0KI]

In my opinion, the other benefit of dumping the above bar swivel systems is that they can make a better single line safety release system that is more reliable, and cheap to build.
Most of them fail if your kite has had a problem and starts to loop, all the lines twist into a thick rope and then they don't go to single line properly, you then need to release your leash and let the kite go.
The best single line safety I've ever had is on an older Blade bar system (the one that a few forum members bitched about for months) that would release to single line even when the kite was looping.
It is the standard by which other safeties are judged..for me.

[Laughingman]

Do you have a pic of this Blade bar? A quick search turned up only the UNi bar

[L0KI]

Here is the safety system.
Super simple, cheap to make and it works.......for me.
The bar also has oh shite handles on both steering lines.
The amsteel at the steering line leaders and in the center line leaders allows you to hold and grab and manipulate the whole thing without cutting your fingers off like kite line will when powered.
The length of the two amsteel lines on center allows them to be twisted many times without a significant effect on anything, and when you pull the safety the single center line comes all the way to the bar without a problem, even when your kite has twisted the whole mess.
Disclaimer: I make no claim to it being better or worse than anything else and want nothing to do with an argument from anybody about bar systems.

[CaptainArgh]

I also changed to the Wainman swivel. Looks good out of the box.
Once installed and subjected to the same environment as the SS universal swivel it replaced, I didn't find it to performed any differently.
I still rinse it after each session and occasionally hit it with DryLube. Still binds up.
So, in my experience the only benefit is it is cheaper than other options.

[L0KI]

Of the swivels I've used the Wainman works more often than the others, but I don't think it's an item worth paying extra for.
Switch claims theirs works and it was designed at a date after the Wainman and Mutiny, but I don't believe that it is better either.
It would be great to see what happens if the companies just gave up on that above swivel and started thinking harder about the rest of the parts!!
Like Greg at BoardRiding Maui did.

[knotwindy]

does anyone know of a marine product designed to be used at a lubricant in salt water conditions for SS that we could adapt for the bearings in the swivels?