Although it it advised to clean the speargun in fresh water after every diving, of course a lot of people doesn’t do that. Sometimes it’s laziness, but one of the reasons is also that you usually keep the speargun on the boat where you don’t really have plenty of fresh water to throw away (as I explained in one of my previous posts) so you just leave it salty during summer.
But, at the end of summer you usually take all the important (or should I say expensive) stuff from the boat to your home so you can clean it and keep it at home during winter. There is always a little bit of moisture on the boat during winter that can shorten the useful life of some equipment and there is of course the salt that can cause corrosion of the materials. Although spearguns are made of stainless steel which is less reactive to corrosion, sometimes the shaft is made of steel.
So what you have to do is:
- Wash the speargun with fresh water. Clean thoroughly all the parts – metal, plastic parts ropes.
- Detach the spear from the shaft by rewinding the thread so you can clean it better. It is also better to keep it detached during winter.
- Apply a little of vaseline in all windings so that they to not harden during winter.
These instructions refer mostly to pneumatic guns. Band guns can be cleaned in the same way, but you also need to clean the bands.
Care about your equipment! 🙂
Olive Tree By the Sea 