FAUX J.C Higgins Project

[surflung]

My J.C.Higgins Project

I forget how it all got started but... I read up on the J.C. Higgins double hose regulators on the CG45.com website. It originally was a U.S.Divers Stream Air that was private labeled and sold as the J.C. Higgins "Aqua-Air-Lung" by Sears Roebuck. So, it was not a MIstral NOR a DAAM. I thought I had a Mistral with bad cans laying around and figured I'd paint it blue and make up a J.C Higgins label reproduction to stick on it.

CG45.com has an excellent photo of the label. So I contacted Adair and he graciously gave me permission to reproduce the label. The only sure waterproof label material I could find online was bumper sticker... Which had plenty of room to layout extra copies of the label. This turned out actually very good. But when I pulled out the Mistral I was going to paint, I found it was too nice of a Mistral to modify. So I set the project aside.

Then my buddy Ron Sheriffdiver asked me for a J.C. Higgins label to use in building his own project. He got a quote from Roger for painting the cans and asked if I wanted to send any cans in with his. So, I found this DA AquaMaster with corroded cans and decided to use that as my FAUX J.C.Higgins reg. Three months later we got the painted cans back. And assembled our regulators.

Ron was gracious in letting me show off my project first. His is more authentic looking with a removable horn on the can... like the original J.C. Higgins. Mine has the familiar DA AquaMaster internals... Which are an excellent foundation for rebuilding, and tuning into an easy breathing regulator. The original DAAM first stage nozzle was corroded ugly so I looked in my parts for a nicer one. I found the nozzle I plated electroless nickel years ago for my "Mystery Mess" project. (I later on replaced that nozzle with a balanced "Cyclone" nozzle from VDH). So this electroless nickel one is like brand new. I swapped it into this J.C. Higgins DAAM and it works great. Adjusted the IP to 140 and she locks up perfectly with no leaks. I added a brand new silicone diaphragm and duckbill from Rob at the Scuba Museum and put it all back together.

Photos here show my J.C.Higgins with an old hose loop I keep around for testing. I will probably put some new hoses on it. But I like the curved USD mouthpiece because I plan to DIVE this regulator. Besides, I don't know where I would get anything like the original mouthpiece.

If anyone would like to read up on the J.C.Higgins regulators, go to cg-45.com/regulators/JC_Higgins/index.shtml

[surflung]

Dive Report and Update

I dove the JC Higgins up at Fortune Pond and found it to be lacking in the Ease-Of-Breathing department. Compared to a Phoenix HPR I was using up there, it took considerably more effort to suck air from the JC Higgins. I have other DAAMs that breathe well and I thought I had it all adjusted correctly. But when I got home I checked one of the DAAMs that breathes especially easy and discovered that it had one of those "HPR" second stages that Luis and Bryan came up with installed with one of the secondary Venturi ports blocked.

Frankly, I've been messing with compressors so much these last few years, I forgot about those HPRs. Now it all comes back to me and here is what I remember: Neither the Phoenix nor the Cyclone balanced 1st stage made as dramatic of an improvement in breathing ease as the HPR. NOW I remember I bought a few of them and upgraded most of my DAAMs. That's why the rest of my DAAMs (but not the JC) breathe so easy. But alas... The HPRs are no longer available.

Then I learned from Bill AntiqueDiver that you can adjust the spring tension on the 2nd stage lever by backing out the 2nd stage housing a few turns... Checking for leaks as you go with high and low pressure tanks attached. This will lower the "Cracking Effort" which you can technically measure with a Magnehelic. I've heard of these before but never used one. They're cheap on Ebay so I ordered one. Meanwhile I just went ahead and adjusted the 2nd stage housing outward a little at a time until it just started to leak and then backed off. I put everything back together and tried breathing and sure enough the JC Higgins DID breathe noticeably easier.

So then, I thought of the HPR blocking one of the secondary venturi ports and decided to try that with the stock 2nd stage housing. I screwed the housing back in all the way while keeping one of the venturi ports pointing into the hose. I tapped one of the secondary ports for a 6-48 gunsmith plug screw which made a nice neat job of it. But it was too much and resulted in a strong venturi free flow. So then I tried making a smaller secondary venturi port. First I drilled a 1/32nd inch hole in one of the blank sides. Re-assembled everything and tried breathing normally through the hose loop (never breathe from the horn BTW). That still didn't stop the free flow from happening. All of the dis- and re- assembly was tedious but I opened the port to 1/16th and then to 3/32nd inch. The 3/32nd inch secondary port tamed the venturi free flow to perfect or almost anyway. The JC is breathing almost or as good as one of my HPR DAAMs now.

The next thing I'm going to do is back out the 2nd stage housing (like I did before) to reduce the cracking effort. My hope it to make this JC Higgins equal to my best DAAMs in the Ease-Of-Breathing department. I'll let you know how that works out...

[vance]

I love it. You can drill the plug instead of the second stage body. I use 6 or 8 x32 set screws for these “adjustable” jets, depending on the second stage body.

[surflung]

Good idea on drilling the plug screws.

After backing out the 2nd stage housing, I was able to get the magnehelic gauge to read .9 inch cracking effort. The significance to this (at least to me) is that with no regulator attached, the magnehelic didn't read any lower than .9 for me. I'm sure I had it calibrated right. Anyway, the regulator breathes very easy and almost sets off a free flow with a quick breath.

[antique diver]

Jan 18, 2024 7:57:55 GMT -8 surflung said:

Good idea on drilling the plug screws.

After backing out the 2nd stage housing, I was able to get the magnehelic gauge to read .9 inch cracking effort. The significance to this (at least to me) is that with no regulator attached, the magnehelic didn't read any lower than .9 for me. I'm sure I had it calibrated right. Anyway, the regulator breathes very easy and almost sets off a free flow with a quick breath.

Like I mentioned elsewhere, you did a nice job tuning your Higgins. It looks great too! You'll need to pamper that a bit when you take it diving, but it's gotta get wet.