David Wilson
Contributor
According to the explanation of sorts at 10 Frameless Masks: Anatomy of a Frameless Mask. What's the big deal about the new breed of frameless dive masks showing up at your local dive center? It's simple. As a class, frameless masks tend to be lighter, offer a very low profile and they're lower in volume. They fold up flat for easier packing, and as we found in this Scuba Lab review, they also offer a wider field of vision. How do you make a frameless mask? Throw away the thick plastic frame and attach the buckles directly to the mask skirt. As a result, the lens sits closer to your eyes, offering a broader field of vision in all directions, and with less volume, the mask is easier to clear. They also fold flat for packing and make great backup masks, slipping flat into a BC pocket. For all these reasons, frameless masks have become more popular than ever and companies are responding by offering a growing number of models.
Having snorkelled, but never scuba- or free-dived, for over half a century I've always preferred old-school masks with oval lenses to their modern incarnations and I always take the "if it it ain't broke, why change it?" approach first when it comes to any new technology that looks more driven by the "dismal" science of economics than by state-of-the-art scientific knowledge. If we accept ScubaDiving.com's definition of a "frameless mask" as a diving mask minus the "thick plastic frame", then let's accept too that such masks come with a history at least dating back to the 1950s:
The image above shows the Typhoon Blue Star model in my mask collection broken down into its three separable constituent parts. The headstrap can be seen towards the back and the plastic lens is just visible at the right. A deep groove for the insertion and retention of the lens is clearly visible in the flexible rubber body at the front of the picture. There is no metal rim around the circumference of the rubber rim of the mask body for added security of the lens. The advantage of these historical "frameless masks" is their "disassembleability" demonstrated above, enabling the owner to replace a scratched plastic lens with a shiny new one or to substitute a glass or tinted lens. I'll wager modern "frameless masks" don't offer that option, because we've become a throw-away community when gear goes awry.
Some countries, on the other hand, have developed a "make-do and mend" approach when it comes to diving equipment. A Russian standard for rubber underwater swimming masks (GOST 20568), dating from 1975 but still in force there, divides such masks into two categories:
- Category I: Mask with an additional lens-retaining metal or plastic clamp or frame;
- Category II: Mask without this additional lens-retaining metal or plastic clamp or frame.
