Hi Vintage Divers!

[Twintank]

Hi Vintage Divers!

My name is Franz Rothbrust; I live in southern Germany, dive since 1964 and enjoy diving with good old vintage gear.

I use a “Draeger- Duomat” double hose regulator and a “Draeger” double 7 liter set of twin tanks. In case you have any questions about vintage Draeger gear, just let me know, I will be happy to help.

As an industrial designer by profession, I like to modify or construct diving gear. See my “Navigation Board” under “New Arrivals” here in Dan's web site.

To enjoy diving more silent, I’ve invented a kind of “muffler” for two hose regulators. It’s a pleasure to use it when taking pictures under water. It’s possible to get really close to most fish since breathing noise is minimized. The muffler is easy to make by your self and fits onto all regulators. I’ll send some pictures in case you are interested.

During the past years I have gathered a small collection of vintage diving equipment. Most parts are from “Draeger”, “La Spirotechnique”, "Nikon" and “Rollei”.

There are some pictures I’ve submitted shown here in “Photo Contributions”, see pages 5, 6, 7 & 10. Take a look.


Nice to be here!

Franz Rothbrust “Twintank”

[Linda]

It's about time you showed up here.


((welcome))

[JES]

Welcome Twintank aka "Franz"!

Thank you for introducing yourself. You have definitely come to the right place for Vintage Diving.

It's great that you have decided to become a part of this community. I think you'll find that the members are friendly, extremely helpful and very knowledgeable.

Welcome aboard and remember to stay connected and dive often!


Regards,

JES

[duckbill]

Welcome, Franz! I thought you were already a member here. Thanks for joining.

[luis]

Welcome

Nice Fenzy.

I have a set of Draeger twin tanks (and a similar set of Poseidon twin tanks), but I replace one valve and the manifold of the Draeger with Poseidon valve and manifold.

The Draeger manifold had DIN male connections with a phenolic type gasket rather than the standard O-ring common now a day.

The tank valve I replaced was very interesting (I which I new what I did with it). It had a reserve mechanism with a spring loaded restriction (similar to other reserves) in the main air passage of the valve. The big difference is that when you pulled the reserve lever, instead of retracting the reserve plunger, it opened a bypass valve air passage. What was even more strange was that the secondary valve had an extremely course thread pitch in order to open the reserve fully with just a quarter turn of the reserve lever.

Are you familiar with that type of valve? Do you have any pictures or diagrams?
I whish I still had it. It was definitely a piece of conversation.



Draeger tanks built in 1957 with Poseidon manifold and harness.
I do have the original Draeger harness with two bands.




Only the right valve is original Draeger:




Poseidon tanks:




On the far right is the old Draeger manifold:




Poseidon tanks with Phoenix Royal Aqua Master using a DIN connection.

[Broxton Carol]

luis that is a set of double dynamite tanks you got there. WOW!

[luis]

I got this email from Franz with pictures of the valve I was talking about. I always though this was an interesting valve.
Just seeing the pictures has brought great memories.
Thanks Franz



Hi Luis,

thanks for your reply and interesting pictures.

I’ve tried to place this email including pictures as a reply into the welcome center. But I could not figure out how to get the pictures into the message. This is why I’ve sent my reply to your private email address.

I’ll take a look, maybe I have one of those Dräger reserve valves left over. If not, they show up in Ebay every once and a while.
I was lucky to find some unused ones. They were manufactured in different versions. The old ones had a metal lever protector. They were made during the 1950 - 1960ties. Afterwards the metal protector was replaced by a yellow plastic part. Some of them have a M25 x 2 thread, these are very rare. You can connect a pressure gauge directly onto the valve.

These valves were made for professional divers. That is why they open when pulling the reserve lever. Professionals often dive in water with no visibility; they just can not see their pressure gauge. To control their air volume they need two tanks. They open only the second valve without reserve mechanism. This tank is emptied first, so 50 % of the total air volume is used up then. Then the reserve valve lever has to be pulled, air streams over into the second tank again. The reserve lever is pushed upwards again to close the valve. Now there is 25% of the total air volume left in each tank. After emptying the open tank, the lever is pulled again to have the rest volume of 25% for surfacing.

I personally like these valves because you can jump into the water with a closed valve by mistake, just pull the lever then.

Franz


Reserve valve with a M25 x 2 thread





Valve with a assembled pressure gauge. The elder versions had a thicker gauge hose than shown here.




The pressure gauge is mounted into the connection showing front wards. It’s a left wound thread!




Rear view




Conical thread and metal lever protector.



My “every weekend” set.