cleaning sand from apeks regs

[gzscuba]

Hi all,

I just came back from a dive trip where my gear had taken a bit of abuse. The sand from beach diving had gotten into my regs during a particularly rough exit and my reg was freeflowing on the shore - sand was caught in the purge button. I was able to screw off the front face plate and fix the freeflow, but a bit of sand got into the threads for the face plate. I did my best to remove it, and very loosely screwed the face plate back on.
Upon getting home and obtaining a reasonably lit work space, I tried to remove any remaining sand from the faceplate threads. I started usingmy fingernail, but ended up using the "eraser" end of a fabric marking pencil from my wife. It is a little brush-like device with stiff plastic bristles. It worked quite well in coaxing out the sand from the threads, and has been relocated from the sewing kit to the save-a-dive kit. I hope that I'll never have to use it again.

So, two questions:
1. You just got out of the water, and you discover that your reg is freeflowing because of sand in the mechanism. What do you do, step by
step?
2. How would you get sand out of the threads in the faceplate?

Thanks,

 

[Spectre]

remove the faceplate, the retainer, and the diaphram, and then [while it's pressurized] swish it in water....

 

[Greg Barlow]

remove the faceplate, the retainer, and the diaphram, and then [while it's pressurized] swish it in water....

An old, soft toothbrush is also beneficial in removing any debris. If you don't remove all of the sand, then it can easily damage the softer reg components. All materials can be rated on a "hardness" scale. A diamond ranks as a 10, with a soft mineral like gypsum (drywall material) being in the lower range somewhere around a 3. Anyway, a harder material will scratch/cut a softer. Sand, which often is composed of bits of quartz, can easily be in the 6-7 range. The common plastics used in reg components are probably no harder than a 3 or 4 (if that).

Enough of the science teacher in me....

I use the soft toothbrush along with gently flowing water. High pressure water can actually force the particles into crevices.

Greg