I recently came across this Seaway 2nd stage as part of a batch I bought up on local classifieds (mainly bought the whole thing for an mk25 and an s600); I didn’t even see a good picture of it I initially thought it was a 108/9
When it arrived I decided to open it up, and well.. it was so weird and had a frankenreg vibe (at a design level because noone coulda welded this for fun)
The main case seems to be almost pristine, no dents, scratches or chrome loss anywhere, just a tiny bit of verdigris under the mouthpiece (expected) that went away easily
here’s how it looks after a quick clean (yes I was washing it along a satin 156BA that I found last week - it had a curiously thin diaphragm, thinnest I ever seem actually I was afraid to tear it, but I don’t wanna derail myself)
The clamps seemed in an OK shape, all the chrome there, just a couple of small scratches
The diaphragm was a bit thicker than any I have seen before (contrast to the 156above), but not too far off
This is where things start to get funny:
The front cover had lots of scratches but still no chrome loss, but only till today (cleaning day) I didn’t notice that it’s not metal, it’s only plastic with a “chrome” finish , only really the back of it shows aesthetic signs of being fake and some unclean-able (?) verdigris (!) — has that POS plastic part been coated with actual chrome!?
Now the main event, the mechanism
The lever doesn’t seem like the SP ones I saw (not that I know much about the 108/080 variantions, I try to stick to the balanced stuff); but seems still fairly standard
But the cherry on top of this whole thing, the Venturi tube, I have seem the holes in the lever block on SP ones (108,190,290) and I’ve seen Mares VADs, but nothing like this before
This seems like an early midpoint version of something like the VAD, and I’m very intrigued: this is the 1st time I actually wanna try and dive an unbalanced chrome job like this (esp with a 26mm exhaust), just to have a feel for the Venturi effect which I suspect to be quite strong
Curios to hear more about that Venturi tube, anyone saw something like that? Have info on that/similar stuff?
Mares aficionados (@lowwall) is that how VAD started?
Also, Anyone can “date” this reg? Can’t seem to find any info about it anyways
When it arrived I decided to open it up, and well.. it was so weird and had a frankenreg vibe (at a design level because noone coulda welded this for fun)
The main case seems to be almost pristine, no dents, scratches or chrome loss anywhere, just a tiny bit of verdigris under the mouthpiece (expected) that went away easily
here’s how it looks after a quick clean (yes I was washing it along a satin 156BA that I found last week - it had a curiously thin diaphragm, thinnest I ever seem actually I was afraid to tear it, but I don’t wanna derail myself)
The clamps seemed in an OK shape, all the chrome there, just a couple of small scratches
The diaphragm was a bit thicker than any I have seen before (contrast to the 156above), but not too far off
This is where things start to get funny:
The front cover had lots of scratches but still no chrome loss, but only till today (cleaning day) I didn’t notice that it’s not metal, it’s only plastic with a “chrome” finish , only really the back of it shows aesthetic signs of being fake and some unclean-able (?) verdigris (!) — has that POS plastic part been coated with actual chrome!?
Now the main event, the mechanism
The lever doesn’t seem like the SP ones I saw (not that I know much about the 108/080 variantions, I try to stick to the balanced stuff); but seems still fairly standard
But the cherry on top of this whole thing, the Venturi tube, I have seem the holes in the lever block on SP ones (108,190,290) and I’ve seen Mares VADs, but nothing like this before
This seems like an early midpoint version of something like the VAD, and I’m very intrigued: this is the 1st time I actually wanna try and dive an unbalanced chrome job like this (esp with a 26mm exhaust), just to have a feel for the Venturi effect which I suspect to be quite strong
Curios to hear more about that Venturi tube, anyone saw something like that? Have info on that/similar stuff?
Mares aficionados (@lowwall) is that how VAD started?
Also, Anyone can “date” this reg? Can’t seem to find any info about it anyways
