Check this vintage ad out...

[David Wilson]

I suppose that's a duckbill mounted in the hood, right?

Here's a photo from Modern Spearfishing by Vane Ivanović, published 1955 by Nicholas Kaye of London:

The caption explains the valve's presence.

 

[Akimbo]

I suppose that's a duckbill mounted in the hood, right?

Here's a photo from Modern Spearfishing by Vane Ivanović, published 1955 by Nicholas Kaye of London:

View attachment 692983​

The caption explains the valve's presence.

For readers who are not be familiar with the term duckbill, it is a molded rubber one-way valve used inside the body of double hose regulators. It was adapted to use on early latex drysuits to vent air — performing the function of a non-adjustable OPV (Over Pressure Valve) on modern drysuits.

I'm pretty sure that duckbill valves were used on the first double hose regulator prototypes build by Émile Gagnan in 1943 for Jacques-Yves Cousteau.

These early drysuits didn't have power inflators to add air to the suit at depth so suit squeeze was common. Divers would return to the surface with long narrow bruises where the suit was creased and pinched the skin through their woolen underwear.

 

[jadairiii]

I'm pretty sure that duckbill valves were used on the first double hose regulator prototypes build by Émile Gagnan in 1943 for Jacques-Yves Cousteau.

Duckbill valves were used on all USD double hose regulators up until they were discontinued in 74-75 (Royal Aqua Master with a 3000 psi yoke). When they came out with the Mentor I believe they finally did away with it. I believe Healthways used a diaphragm for years but not 100% sure.

 

[James79]

Duckbill valves were used on all USD double hose regulators up until they were discontinued in 74-75 (Royal Aqua Master with a 3000 psi yoke). When they came out with the Mentor I believe they finally did away with it. I believe Healthways used a diaphragm for years but not 100% sure.

Healthways Scuba used a diaphragm (and a duckbill, in at least some). The Scuba Deluxe and Gold Label use a mushroom valve exhaust, if I have it right.

 

[CT-Rich]

René Sports was the first importer of the Aqua Lung in the US. This ad appeared in the first issue of Skin Diver Magazine in 1951. René Bussoz founded US Divers.

View attachment 692969​

I think these were the villainous aliens in the 1968 season of Dr Who… or at least they should’ve been.

 

[Open Ocean Diver]

Any one know what a slurp gun is?

 

[James79]

Any one know what a slurp gun is?

View attachment 709529

If I understand right, they were for live collecting fish for aquariums. Pull the handle like a giant syringe to "slurp" up the fish.

 

[Bigbella]

If I understand right, they were for live collecting fish for aquariums. Pull the handle like a giant syringe to "slurp" up the fish.

That's exactly it.

My preference was the "Bandito," -- picked it up in Mexico; there's a surprise -- which we often used to collect mysid (aka "opossum") shrimp, and a few other things, for laboratories.

One guy with the Bandito and another with the plastic bags and rubber bands.

To give you an idea of the Byzantine and whack-job nature of the California Department of Fish and Game, it was then permissible to use that slurp gun, while scuba diving; but, if we happened to collect them from the Zodiac, anchored above, with tiny dip nets, from the floating kelp canopy, we were then considered commercial fishermen and had to carry those requisite and very expensive permits.

Never mind, that we were, at any given time, only collecting the biomass of tiny shrimp, that would occupy two, maybe three tablespoons, tops -- and certainly not the thirty-four thousand short tons of squid harvested from Monterey Bay, just a few years back . . .

 

[Open Ocean Diver]

From a friends on FB… lol

 

[Open Ocean Diver]

triple tank