It's all about hoses.....

[Triton]

In what is yet another attempt to avoid working while I sit in my office, I was on the web reading on ways to improve your gear when I came upon a tip to change the lengh or to a more flexible hose.

A while back, I wanted to shorten the lengh of my regulator hose, so I went to my usual dive shop to ask them about it. I was told that they could not change the lenght and that in no way should I tried to chage it at all.

I am currently using a Sherwood Oasis and wanted to know if the dive shop was right about not being able to change the length, or could it be that maybe they just didn't want to deal with it, in which case would make me a very unhappy camper :upset:

 

[Mario S Caner]

Triton,
Funny one! Looks like you're having too much fun at work... LOL! As to the lengthening of your regulator hose, it can be done. It's not uncommon for divers to request longer hoses, it's usually for a technical diving application though. If your dive shop blew you off, more than likely they didn't have the inhouse materials that they needed to make the minor modification. They should have just come out and said that though, instead of lying to you. The ball's in your court.

 

[Dee]

Triton...why would you want to shorten your regulator hose? Most of us replace them with longer hoses, not shorter!

 

[Merlin]

Is it really common to actually change the length of the hose? I think it's more common to buy a whole new hose of the desired length. Is it possible there was confusion in the shop about this?

 

[SubMariner]

Why you want to SHORTEN your hose?

Most of the time you want at least one hose to be longer, so that in the event of an Out-of-Air emergency, the receiver gets the longer hose & you two can ascend more easily. Trust me, being on a "short leash" in that situation is NOT a good idea.

People are always getting hoses changed out. It's no big deal. Never heard of anyone CUTTING them, though....

~SubMariner~

 

[Triton]

That was really a bad choice of words on my part, but after reading your replies, I can see where you are coming from and maybe another trip to the shop is in order to make sure there was no missunderstanding.

As for the reason of wanting a shorter hose is that right now it pushes my mouth piece over to the left and I wanted to even it out a little. Hadn't really thought about the safety issue, I guess I was just concentrating more on comfort part of it.

Thanks for the heads up....

 

[SubMariner]

When a diver has problems with the way the mouthpiece not sitting correctly in their mouth, it's usually due to how their tank is sitting in the BC straps. For example, a tank (and attached reg) that tends to pull out of a diver's mouth usually means that they have their tank too low. Thus, they are are "running out of hose" when they want to turn their head.

When you put your gear together, experiment with putting the tank higher or lower in the straps and see how that works for you. A good "rule of thumb" is that the top edge of the BC should be about equal with the top of the valve on the tank. That usually gives you the optimum length for freedom of movement with the reg in your mouth without the tank sitting so high that the valve hits you in the back of the head.

Geez...where's that magic drawing board when you want to demonstrate?

Good luck!

~SubMariner~

 

[turnerjd]

Hi,

I think that the vast majority of people here didn't read the origional post correctly (OK mebe 1 or 2 of you did), basically the Q was can I have a few inches cut off my reg hose?

The simple answer is no.

This is mostly because dive stores are a) not insured for that type of modification to equipement, b) they don't have the correct tools, and also, c) it is very difficult to get a good pressure proof seal once you try to get the end back on the hose.

I would suspect that all the costs involved in the above make it unfeasable to shorten hoses (together with the lack of demand?) since it is almost certainly cheeper to sell a mass produced, shorter hose.

Jon T