Getting O-rings off hoses

[scubatoys]

Junk. Although, to be fair, maybe this is THE ONE TRUE TOOL, and I've just had the misfortune to only be exposed to the imitators.The picks on these tools tend to be crude and barely useable for spearing the large fat valve o-rings used in old USD valves, never mind the modern skinny ones or anything not sitting right out in the open. The wrenches are sloppy and tend to slip, and pieces break off the screwdriver blades. Save your hard earned cash for real tools.

Actually I can tell by looking at that one - that it is a Taiwain copy... and I should know... that's how I got started in the business... I hold the patent on the original ScubaTool. One of the easiest ways to tell a copy, is just before I sold the company, I switched the o-ring pick to brass instead of stainless steel. Made it less likely to screw up valves when digging out o-rings.

Still, even the Original Scuba Tool would not be the tool for this job.... and in fact, I'll be the first to tell you I'd rather have a set of wrenches, a set of screwdrivers, a set of O-ring picks, and a set of hex keys when working on a reg... but that's a little hard to carry to Palau... So the scuba tool was born.

For what you're doing - the dental pick is the tool of choice... If you needed to do it at all. If doing nitrox mixes below 40% you didn't have to do anything anyway that o-ring was fine... if using this set up on high O2 mixes above EAN40 - deco bottles, etc... then it's good you're doing it.

 

[simbrooks]

Thanks for the all the help and opinions. I am fairly fresh to diving and to maintaining my stuff (its only 4 months old - so no-one has had their maintenance hands on it yet). I guess i would rather be safe than sorry about the o-ring, i know the brown ones are ok for the application and the supplier of the hoses told me he didnt know what type were on there - so i thought it best to change them out. The only stuff i have dabbled in with my regs is swapping out the hoses and cleaning out the inside of the 2nd stage by taking off the face plate - wouldnt do much more than that without some knowledge of the components. I shall look into the travel tool, the books, pick sets and other tools for use with that - and some are already there for my bike anyway.

 

[redacted]

While replacing that o-ring now is unnecessary, your preparations to do it when needed in the future should include some Christolube unless you can get Uncle Pug to spew some your way. BTW, it will turn out to be the most expensive of the things you need to do the job. Unlubed, that dynamic o-ring could be a problem. And std silicone lube is propably a bigger threat in a high O2 environment than the o-ring material.

 

[HammerNoMore]

Good point.

 

[simbrooks]

Actually my LDS gave me a free bit of Christolube (blob about the size of my pinkie - beyond last knuckle) - actually it was a shop assistant/tech not the manager - that is why i got it for free Thinking i will take them in for him to look at and replace for now and get the tools myself sometime soon - will probably get them changed for free too, the lad is good to me like that!!