Attaching boltsnaps

Background

A wide range of your gear will need bolt snaps being attached : your primary regulator, your SPG, your primary light and so on.

This article will take you through the technique of securely attaching bolt snaps to your gear easily and reliably. I always struggled understanding how to attach bolt-snaps because, being dyslexic, I do struggle to understand and learn by reading (in particular), but also listening too. I much prefer to do and be shown, so I could never do bolt snaps until someone showed me this technique.

Getting started

To attach a bolt snap to a piece of equipment you will need the following :

1. A bolt snap
2. Your equipment
3. A piece of cave line approximately 20 cm long
4. A lighter

In this example, I want to attach a bolt snap to one of my stage bottle regulators as you can see below.

Regulator and boltsnap

The first step is to wrap the cave line around your hose and through the bolt snap three times as shown below.

Three wraps around the hose and bolt snap

You want to pull both ends of the line tight to bring the bolt snap tightly against the regulator hose. Then make a reef knot as shown below. Pull the reef knot tightly to secure it and pass the two ends of the line backwards. You will probably have to pull the lines tight to get them under the boltsnap. The tighter you can do all of these steps the better secured the bolt snap will be.

Passing the lines backwards

Flip the hose over so that you are now looking at the back of the bolt snap. Pull the lines tight and make another reef knot on this side of the bolt snap as shown below.

First reef knot on the back.

Make a second reef knot on top of the previous one to secure it.

Second reef knot on the back.

Use the lighter to "cut" the cave line to length. Also burn the ends right down and use the butt of the lighter to make a mushroom top to the end of the cave line. This will prevent the line from getting pulled through the knot.

Neat bolt snap

And that's it. One bolt snap securely attached to your hose. I hope this has been of use, if you think I can make the explanation better or need additional pictures let me know and I'll update this guide.