Anyone remember when...

[Luis H]

YES. Those old metal zippers were awful. Zippers failed on many suits before the rubber failed. I believe they were aluminum, and those parts would always bind up. My pal John got stuck in his suit once. It took his wife and mine to fiddle the zipper open, while he stood there in 90+ degree heat.

I tried candle wax, Pledge, silicone spray and did not improve things much.

Well the booties had no zippers, and that was a problem of a different kind.

Stu.

Yeah, I have to agree with that. I forgot about some of the zippers. I only dove with a ¼” shorty as a kid in the Caribbean so it was a comfortable wet suit.

I was thinking about today highly stretch neoprene being very comfortable, but I think that it has the trade of that it compresses very easily. I don’t know that for a fact. It just seems logical. That being said, I do like the comfort of my modern wet suits, but I still prefer a two piece.

 

[Luis H]

Here are most of my vintage depth gauges. I am not a real collector. One of my friends has a real display of vintage gauges. A couple of these were given to me, like the green one on the bottom right with the built in compass.

The two capillary gauges on the top left I have own since the early 70’s. I also have own one of the oil filled Scubapro with the green dial.

The black faced Scubapro on the bottom left is IMHO one of the greatest gauges of all times. I used to own one like it, but I don’t know what happened to it. This one I got from a friend. It is in pretty sad shape. These gauges still sell on eBay for relatively big dollars. Notice that it reads up to 500 ft.

Notice the US Divers gauge with the orange face. It has a capillary gauge around the perimeter.

And last, but definitely not least, is the analog decompression computer. I always thought it was an interesting concept. The big case houses a gas bag that will compress under pressure. There is a porous membrane (actually I understand it is more like a stone) that allows the gas under pressure to pass by it and into a bourdon tube gauge. The gas passing by the membrane and back as the pressure goes down was supposed to simulate the gas absorption into body fluids. Clever idea if it can be calibrated to be analogous enough. I a have heard that some people still use them today.