How To Build Your Own Diving Lung

[Ben Dugger]

Years ago we were too poor to buy "Aquq Lungs" as they were called back then. We would buy surplus Deluter Oxygen Regulators and convert them. These regulators were used in aircraft. Scrounge up an old CO 2 fire extinguisher tank, build you a harnes and you were in business. They didn't have reserve valves, sea view gages and B C's werent invented yet. We wouldjust grab our tank and a speargun and go hunting. When it got hard to breathe we just came up. No big deal.

 

[Sam Miller III]

Years ago we were too poor to buy "Aquq Lungs" as they were called back then. We would buy surplus Deluter Oxygen Regulators and convert them. These regulators were used in aircraft. Scrounge up an old CO 2 fire extinguisher tank, build you a harnes and you were in business. They didn't have reserve valves, sea view gages and B C's werent invented yet. We wouldjust grab our tank and a speargun and go hunting. When it got hard to breathe we just came up. No big deal.

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I for one would like to hear more of your adventures and the homemade equipment...

Sounds exciting!

SDM

 

[oxyhacker]

Fred Roberts has a short critique of this design, in his BASIC SCUBA (the bible on scuba gear back in the '60's). Best I can recall, he said that they tended to blow out the HP seats, and that none of the divers he knew who used them dared take them below 30 feet.

 

[Chris Hipp]

And people say we have too much advertising today...that magazine seems like it is 90% ads.

 

[Sam Miller III]

Years ago we were too poor to buy "Aquq Lungs" as they were called back then. We would buy surplus Deluter Oxygen Regulators and convert them. These regulators were used in aircraft. Scrounge up an old CO 2 fire extinguisher tank, build you a harnes and you were in business. They didn't have reserve valves, sea view gages and B C's werent invented yet. We wouldjust grab our tank and a speargun and go hunting. When it got hard to breathe we just came up. No big deal.

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Ben

We are waiting!

Please tell us how you made your SCUBA"Way back when"

sdm

 

[Ben Dugger]

We old guys would bore you to tears if we got to telling "war stories" but heres one:

Did you ever hear of free flow lungs? They consisted of an inverted tank that metered the constant flow of air through a needle valve up to a mouthpiece and then out a duck beak valve just left of the mouthpiece. To use one we learned to inhale slowly and exhale quickly.
Later we equiped them with a breather bag worn around the neck. Air accumulated in the bag during the exhale cycle. At the next breath, the diver got half of a breath and the other half from the tank. It worked much better.

 

[Ben Dugger]

Most of the co 2 tanks we used had a 1" pipe thread. To use them we installed a 1" to 1/2" hydraulic pipe bushing. The diving valves back then were made with `1/2 pipe threads. The valves were K (off and on) and the J (Reserve valve). The J valve had a spring loaded seat that opposed the incoming air and as long as the pressure was high it posed no obstruction but as the pressure dropped it became harder io breathe. Then the diver pulled a rod attached to an arm that relieved the spring tension on the constricting seat and this notified that there was about 5 min of air remaining.

 

[Sam Miller III]

Gosh!

That is exciting!

What about the US Divers R valve?

Please borrre us moooore

sdm

 

[John C. Ratliff]

Ben,

Dr. Miller was talking "tongue in cheek," because most of us are pretty familiar with the valves used during this era. In the 1960s, we in the US Air Force used twenty-man life raft bottles (CO2), which were wrapped, by unwrapping them and then putting in those 1/2 inch tapered threads to accept a USD J-valve (they originally had an outside thread). We also put manifold guard over the valve so that a parachute with its lines and risers would not catch on the scuba unit when we jumped parascuba. Here's what they looked like:

(Photo by John C. Ratliff, taken in 1968 off Okinawa [which is now part of Japan--Ryukyu Islands]).

So CO2 bottles have been used for quite some time, and these were used up through the 1970s.

Concerning the R-valve, this is a restrictor orifice valve. I have never used it in valve-form, but this same reserve system was on the original Healthways Scuba regulator, which was my first regulator. It is very effective in telling the diver when he or she is running low on air. It did this by restricting breathing at a predetermined pressure (usually around 300 psig). In other words, to get air without the restriction, the diver had to ascend. The disadvantage--the restriction got much worse if the diver descended. So it went out of favor, especially as wreck and cave diving became popular and divers had to descend to get out.

SeaRat

 

[duckbill]

Ben,

Dr. Miller was talking "tongue in cheek,"

I hope not. That wouldn't be cricket, especially toward a new member.
Welcome to the forum and thanks for posting, Ben. It's all interesting and apropos to the subject matter here.