Vintage Gear!

[Aquacatfighter]

Hi Art.chick,

Yes! I know of one company that still makes them and I beleave the name of the mask is the Mares (VEDO).....

 

[swsurgeon]

I have a weight belt that my late father made around 1960. The belt itself is a military accessory belt. He custom poured the weights himself. Also fabricated a stainless quick release. It works great but I haven't used it since he died because of the sentimental value (don't want to risk losing it).

 

[ew1usnr]

I started diving in 1979 and have always liked a black rubber oval mask with a purge valve. Round masks are nice too. They look like a port hole. They fit my face good and look like what a SCUBA mask is supposed to look like. Those weird new things look like space martian Halloween masks. In the mid 80's I got a low volume mask after hearing that they were the best. I ended up not liking it. When I dove down the nose pocket would collapse around my nose, sealing it and making it impossible to equalize the mask unless I came up some. Also, I didn't like the way that the glass was divided in two. It made me feel cross-eyed. I like one big pane of glass in front of me. The advantage of the low volume mask is that it takes less air to clear. But, so what? How much less air are we talking? A 1/4 of a pint? That's ridiculous. It's irrelevant anyway if you are using a purge valve. The dive instructors used to say to avoid purge valves because they would leak. My Scubapro black rubber masks have silicone purge valves. After about 10-15 years the black rubber skirt would deteriorate, but the silicone valve never did and it never leaked except in one case when it got a blade of grass in it. But I noticed that before I went down and cleaned it out. I tried a clear silicone rubber mask once and didn't like it. Light came through the skirt and reflected back at me off the glass. I went back to my black rubber mask. I really do not undestand why black oval masks fell out of favor.

Double hose regulators vent the exhaust bubbles behind a divers head where they belong. They are a lot to dive with.

 

[ew1usnr]

Aquacatfighter once bubbled...
I was wondering if anybody here likes to dive with the old double hoses reg. and oval mask???

Is this the type of set that you were asking about?

 

[DA Aquamaster]

I have a 1960-61 US Divers DA Aquamaster and a 1960 vintage US Divers Mistral. The Mistral actually breathes very well and I use it pretty heavily for fun dives around the boat this time of year when the water is warm (74 degree, at the surface down to about 35 ft.)

It is a nice change to zip around in a T-shirt, a single tank, backpack and horse collar BC. Once you do that and see the speed potential, you find yoursel getting very serious about streamlining your "modern" scuba gear.

I accessorize with a Scubapro vintage depth gauge (with markings to 500') that I bought new old stock this year from a dive shop going out of business.

Clearing the hose is a little different as even with a newer style mouthpiece with wagonwheels and mushroom style check valves. The effort required to clear is substantially higher than with a single hose reg and if short on air, you end up wondering if you are going to have enough air to do it. You don't get the same gravity assist you do with a single hose second stage.

They are also a bit noisier in general with the air from the tank going through the hose on the right and the exhaled going through the hose and butterfly style exhouat valve on tyhe other. And all that air tends to float you a bit more head up in trim if you stop moving. But that's ok as they breath better in that position.

They breathe a little harder than new regs and breathing resistance varies with body position. As soon as you use one, you understand why Mike Nelson kneeled on the bottom or was upright in the water so often when doing stuff (and waiting for someone to swim up and cut his air hose) as a double hose reg is easiest to breath when in that position. If you are looking up or are upside down they will force feed you air, while in a normal swimming position they are a little harder to breathe. Head down, they can be down right hard to breathe from.

Leaning back is not an option on the surface (the position where a horse collar BC wants to float you) as it will cause the reg to freeflow, so you end up huigging the horse collar and leaning forward on top of it.

There are reproduction oval masks available along with new hoses, mouthpieces and butterfly valves for US Divers regs and the various copies.

Lot of fun though and everyone should have one! Fish will swim right up to your mask as they peer around from behind the cover and concealment of your head to watch the bubbles

 

[scubafanatic]

Hi ew1usnr,

...is that a picture of you diving the trieste? ...also, the photo looks like a cave dive? ....is that a cave diver using the Trieste?

(I've got a small vintage reg collection, including an Aquamaster, a 'new' mid-nineties Nemrod Snark III, and 3 Voit Trieste II's---one of which is NIB)...but I haven't dove any of them yet).

I'm a little nervous about the hose clearing issue...and the hoses look a little fragile for any sort of penetration diving.


Karl

 

[ScoobieDooo]

I have a Healthways '63-'66 double hose reg that I just acquired and rebuilt. Simple in design and fun to play with!

Looking forward to diving it in shallow water for fun!

Lots of vintage gear out there on eBay, some in EC condition. Parts for many can be had from Vintage Scuba such as hoses, valves, clamps, etc. He even sells the old oval masks, fins, etc. Lots of printed info out there on rebuilding them, etc.

I had a friend who had an old Aqua Lung plastic backpack. Sure was an inexpensive affair for shallow diving fun!

 

[ew1usnr]

Yea, that's me with a Trieste. It has a Trieste II mouthpiece. That photo was taken about a month ago in Blue Spring, a Florida State Park. The photo was not taken in a cave. Blue spring has a shaft that drops straight down and that was a crevice in the wall. A double hose would not be a good choice for cave diving because buddy breathing would be difficult. Even more so if you had to buddy breathe while making a horizontal exit. The double hoses are a lot of fun but I stick to open water with them. The hoses are not delicate. The Trieste is a high performance (for a double hose), two-stage, balanced regulator and will blow an enormous amount of air when it free flows. It was Voit's flagship regulator in 1966.
How did you end up with THREE Triestes? If you private message me your email address, I can forward you a full sized copy of the Trieste ad.

 

[ew1usnr]

ScoobieDooo once bubbled...
I have a Healthways '63-'66 double hose reg that I just acquired and rebuilt. Simple in design and fun to play with!

We meet again (Dennis). That's a nice photo of your Healthways in your "profile". The thing that stands out to me is that it looks to have a smaller bore diameter mouthpiece than do other double hoses of that time (Dacor, Voit, US Divers). That's why it has those special little flapper valves for the mouthpiece. Slip underwater with it and gives us a dive report.

 

[ew1usnr]

Here's a nice Sea Hunt photo.