FAber Steel 120 Doubles

[EricM.]

I have a chance to get a pair of Faber steel 120's, for $500 from my LDS. the catch is that they are set up as doubles, and apparently the round caps that are used to close the manifolds off to make singles out of them are super rare. I am faced with trying to find the plugs, or buying a set of single valves for each tank, which would offset the savings I would get for buying them in the first place. I have been looking online for the plugs, has anyone got a machine shop contact that could make them, or does anyone have some of the round plug caps sitting around gathering dust? At this point the tanks are being tested and cleaned, so I don't have to have them this minute.

---------- Post added March 21st, 2015 at 02:50 AM ----------

Here is an image of what I am talking about. In the U.K. they are called Blanking Caps. I haven't found them in the U.S. yet.

 

[Scared Silly]

Sounds like the manifold is one of the OMS face sealing manifolds and yes the end caps are hard to find. If you do not ever plan to dive them as doubles I'd just ditch the manifold/bands and get some new valves.

 

[ajduplessis]

Get new valves.

 

[OtherHalf]

Learn to dive a twinset? Buy a BP&W and have unlimited fun...

Or buy new valves. I'd suggest DGE.

 

[rhwestfall]

DGX valves are something like $36 (even for modulars)

 

[Wookie]

It's a great deal, but do you need them? What will you do with them? Do you need 120 ft3 of air/gas? Do you need 240 ft3? I've bought a lot of great deals in my life that turned out to be not such great deals.....

If you have any use for a set of 120's, I'd say go for it. The value of the manifold will more than offset a cheap set of single valves, although you have to be careful. I'm in the middle of rebuilding a set of older OMS manifolds right now, and the burst discs and other parts are hard to find. I'm thinking of just buying all Thermo manifolds so I can get by with one set of parts for everything....

 

[EricM.]

Thanks for the advice, and comments. In answer to one question, I do use 120's whenever I can. I got spoiled when I was doing my OW classes. My dive master lent me one of his. As for BC I didn't quite go BP&W, I bought a Dive Rite Transpac that was already set up for side mount, and had a nice Nomad wing on it already.