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Post by SeaRat on Mar 30, 2020 16:50:14 GMT -8
So, as much as I love a JB inspired off-topic post (don't stop, my friend!), let's get back to the point. What made you participate in this vintage dive gear forum? I like DH regulators. I like modding DH regulators, and I like modding single hosers to DH. I like adding ports to DH regs, and I like to increase the efficiency of DH regs. Well, I've been doing this a long time, much longer than I've been on this forum (which is also a fairly long time). I started "collecting" double hose regulators probably in the 1970s, when I got my first Mistral regulator. John Photos003 by John Ratliff, on Flickr This photo of me was taken in 1970 when I was in the 55th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron, based in Orlando, Florida. I took the pair of jump tanks (Pararescue Section jump tanks, see the stencil on the side) and my first Mistral regulator on it in Alexander Springs State Park, Florida. John Photos004 by John Ratliff, on Flickr Me, in the Siletz River (I think) using a Mistral regulator with a full-face USD mask on it. For me, I've always been experimenting with dive equipment, trying to find the ideal situations and better techniques. During this time (second photo, above) I was a NAUI instructor, and was experimenting with buoyancy compensation devices, along with Bill Herter, of Deep Sea Bill's in Newport, Oregon. Note the inverted, inflatable "U" built into the back of my custom Deep Sea Bill's wet suit. So for me, it is understanding the engineering, and applying that to my diving to make diving more efficient and better. I have always liked double hose regulators as I can get close up to small critters for my underwater photography. IMG_2537 by John Ratliff, on Flickr I have done research on some of the anemones in the Oregon estuaries, and like photographing them. IMG_2714 by John Ratliff, on Flickr These small, very skittish fish are very difficult to get close to. A double hose regulator makes a difference, and in this case I was using, I believe, my Mossback Mk3 regulator with a La Spiro Professional metal mouthpiece (no non-returns), which is a very quiet but efficient mouthpiece. It allowed me to get very close to these fish. John
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Post by DavidRitchieWilson on Mar 31, 2020 2:46:01 GMT -8
So, as much as I love a JB inspired off-topic post (don't stop, my friend!), let's get back to the point. What made you participate in this vintage dive gear forum? I like DH regulators. I like modding DH regulators, and I like modding single hosers to DH. I like adding ports to DH regs, and I like to increase the efficiency of DH regs. As Robert Frost eloquently wrote: I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.I've been a "road less travelled by" sort of guy all my life and I don't intend to change now that I'm a "senior citizen" at least by age. People have always had to convince me why life's bandwagons are worth jumping on. I'm with Congressman Willard Vandiver of the Great "Show-Me" State of Missouri who declared back in 1899 that "I come from a state that raises corn and cotton, cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I'm from Missouri, and you have got to show me." I'm also with the early 1980s BBC technology presenter who finished every TV programme by emphasising how important it was for every viewer to retain, and use, his own choice of devices from the past (in his case a fountain pen) amidst the hyperbole claiming home computers were a panacea for every human ill. It's a message I practise to this very day by choosing not to own a smartphone which would simply disturb my peace when I am outdoors. Finally getting to the point where I can justify my passion for vintage equipment underwater swimming, it began early on for me. Although I've "just" snorkelled pretty well all my life, I did qualify in (double-hose) scuba when I joined my university branch of the British Sub Aqua Club back in the mid-1960s. When a generous relative offered to give me enough cash to buy a diving suit for my birthday, my first impulse was to purchase a Skooba-"totes" drysuit made by So-Lo Marx in the US state of Ohio. This suit was imported by Submarine Products, a now defunct diving equipment manufacturer operating further up the Tyne Valley from where I lived in North East England. Sadly, the American suit was out of production by then and I had to settle for a British-made Typhoon wetsuit instead, which was very much a second choice as far as my young self was concerned. I had to wait several decades for one, but I eventually acquired my own Golden Tiger Totes drysuit, thanks to Vintage Scuba Supply: So even as early as the late 1960s I was beginning to hanker after underwater swimming equipment made during the 1950s and early 1960s but no longer available by the mid-1960s. And there was no eBay back then to get hold of older gear. When the 1980s came around, plastic-bladed fins and silicone-skirted masks had almost eclipsed the gear I had grown up with and I wasn't happy despite the reassurances that the change was "all for the best". The best for whom? As far as I could see, the only beneficiaries were the diving equipment manufacturers driven by the "dismal science" of economics and by an unjustified faith in the superiority of so-called "space-age materials". As a post-war baby-boomer, I regarded natural materials such as wool, cotton, silk and gum rubber as the building blocks of quality products, while man-made materials such as plastics were simply second-rate substitutes, acceptable perhaps during wartime privations but unworthy of a postwar world. So all I felt was resentment when 1980s diving experts explained that everybody should settle for lightweight plastic fins to comply with shrinking airline baggage allowances, settling for silicone masks as well because a minority of divers suffered from allergies and some Hollywood star wearing a silicone mask in an underwater movie had started a new dive fashion trend. No: Dare to be different by staying put. This has been my journey from the time when my choice of diving gear was the height of fashion (1960s) to the new millennium when the same equipment would doubtless have been deeply unfashionable in the eyes of most divers. But fashion is always in a state of flux and what is trendy in 2020 may well look very tired by the mid-2020s. Vintage diving equipment is better than fashion, it's classic gear, manufactured in European and American hubs of industry where its end-users lived and worked, not made by some nameless OEM in the Far East. And what's more, modern diving equipment has developed through the same time period as I have lived through, so its history parallels my own life story. The icing on the cake nowadays is my ability to share this passion with others not only in my own country but also States-side and indeed around the world. It's given me a recreation and brain-engager to keep me going not only through the Coronavirus months but also potentially through my retirement from the world of work. DRW
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Post by nikeajax on Mar 31, 2020 12:22:37 GMT -8
Again, I like anything different and old: when you can couple that with technology that people believe is esoteric that just attracts me to it even more. Another facet of scuba that I think most people don't really pay attention to is the industrial-design element. For instance, form-follows-function and why it look the way it does: I also like the advertising art that goes with it: and the toys: JB
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Post by vance on Mar 31, 2020 16:27:40 GMT -8
That set of HW/DivAir is SWEEEEET. The HW regs look perfect! I also have a set of all 3 HW regs in pristine condition, as well as an alloy DivAir in equally pristine condition. Unfortunately, none of my plastic DivAirs is as good. But 1 is close!
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Post by nikeajax on Mar 31, 2020 17:01:37 GMT -8
Here are a couple of vintage toys that I did a fun diorama with: And Barbara Stanwyk in some HW fins: And a treasure chest of my favorite gear JB
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