Full face mask is a gas?

[Noviz]

At the risk of sounding REAL dumb...

I was in an Army/Navy store and saw a gas-mask... $20. It gave me an airtight seal. I had full field vision. There is a nice, snug cup inside that fits over the nose and mouth, and even has room and connections for comms gear. Taking the filter can off the front and replacing it with a second stage req would require an exacto knife, a few spare parts, and some silicone sealer, and one evening. There's even a purge valve. The whole gizmo is rubber, so you can pinch off the nose to equalize....

So... airtight - vision - purge - equalize... what am I missing? Should I go buy one and play with it? It would be nice to have the option of a FFM (cold water, dirty water, comms, etc.) Is this stoopid?

 

[CentralTxDiver]

While there are those out there in the diving community jury-rigging equipment I would tend to discourage the practice. While it may sound and look like a cool thing to do if something happened to your jury-rigged full-face mask at 90ft it might not be too pleasant. The equipment that is sold to us as specifically dive equipment go through many tests and field trials before reaching the point where its sold to the public as diving equipment and even then rare problems occur. I wouldn't chance it if I were you.

Jim

 

[jonnythan]

While there are those out there in the diving community jury-rigging equipment I would tend to discourage the practice. While it may sound and look like a cool thing to do if something happened to your jury-rigged full-face mask at 90ft it might not be too pleasant. The equipment that is sold to us as specifically dive equipment go through many tests and field trials before reaching the point where its sold to the public as diving equipment and even then rare problems occur. I wouldn't chance it if I were you.

Jim

This attitude is not appropriate for the DIY forum.

If you don't have anything constructive to add beyond a general "making your own scuba gear is dangerous" statement, please stay out of the DIY forum.

Thank you.

 

[CentralTxDiver]

Sorry, I had not realized I was in the DIY section...I replied to the thread from the home page. Please disregard my comments.

 

[htn123]

Noviz,
Give it a try. I would love to hear how it turned out. Test it in a pool or someplace shallow and see how it goes.

 

[shoupart]

Wow, sounds like a great experiment to try out.... I'd really be curious to know how it goes, as well! Good luck!

 

[james croft]

In WW2 Navy Cdr. Edward Ellsberg described connecting a gas mask to umbilicals to aid in dive operations during salvage work in his book Under The Red Sea Sun. The Ocean Reef FFM was a take off on a gas mask. One problem you will have is the lens. If it has 2 lenses it will distort your vision and the same will happen if it has a curved faceplate like many airpack masks used by firefighters. You need a flat faceplate to be able to see well. You also need a noseblock to aid in clearing your ears. It sounds as if you found a mask with an oral/nasal mask built in. If it has one way valves this will cut down on dead air space and minimize CO2 buildup. I believe that this mask will have some limitations but it could be neat making one. If you plan on using surface supplied air, make sure you add a one way check valve where it will connect to the mask. Make the regulator fit close to your face to minimize pressure differentials and if you can use a reg with a dial-a-breath adjustment to help tune the mask it will probably be easier to dive. I say go for it.

 

[Noviz]

For the 6 of you who responded, here's the status of the FFM project.
I checked out all the available gasmasks and settled on a unit that is very much like the Ocean Reef Neptune. The air path is across the eyes, etc. When you put it on and block off the air intake, it gets a great seal. The problem becomes attaching the second stage regulator. This' I'll admit, had me stumped until I saw one of those plastic regulator holder ball things at the LDS. It looked like the same size as the air intake where the gas mask's canister screws in. Sure enough, cutting the ball in half allowed me to stretch it over the opening and tie-wrap it in place. Ant second stage can be jammed into the half-ball, and mounts firmly with a perfect seal!
Tomorrow night I'll try it out in the pool. It if breathes okay, we'll start working on vision, then coms. My concern now is whether te effort to breath it may collapse it. I'll try to adjust the second stage until it's almost a positive pressure thing....

 

[Gary D.]

While there are those out there in the diving community jury-rigging equipment I would tend to discourage the practice. While it may sound and look like a cool thing to do if something happened to your jury-rigged full-face mask at 90ft it might not be too pleasant. The equipment that is sold to us as specifically dive equipment go through many tests and field trials before reaching the point where its sold to the public as diving equipment and even then rare problems occur. I wouldn't chance it if I were you.

Jim

Hi Jim;

I know you did the second post stating to get rid of this post due to you not realizing you were in the DIY section. Please don't take this as a slam dunk because it isn't.

But just for the information of those who think these attempts at things are a no-no, how do you think we got to where we are today?

Most of the gear you use today, if not all of it started out as a DIY. There wasn’t a Dive Fairy that all of a sudden developed and delivered a piece of gear for us to use. In fact, some of the DIY stuff is better than the production stuff because not all of the production stuff fits everyone’s needs.

I built my first ¼” suit, boots and hood, dive watch, spear guns, light, back plate, camera housings, tanks, wet subs, a couple of gas mask ff and several other pieces. I had friends that built regs and we are all still here enjoying life.

People rave on the benefits of a BP. The new and best way to hold your tanks. In fact, as far as BP’s go the industry is going backwards 35 or 40 years. That is what we “ALL” used, other than just straps, back then and our early models were all DIY. I still have my first aluminum one I built in 1962 and even still use it once and a while.

Gary D.

 

[rjack321]

You might have to make it +ve pressure just to keep water from smushing it, never mind the inhale. If its too much like a bellows you'll get a whopper buildup of CO2 from the deadspace. Watch that issue.

I'm curious about the vision thing, not something I really understand (the curvature making vision warped UW)

How many straps does this thing have? Have any pics, I'm having a hard time understanding the reg attachment??