Just got 2 "New" Double-Hose Regs!!

[Mo2vation]

Tell you what, when you come to Oahu, we'll take you on a vintage dive and you can see the difference yourself. We just got Rogers reg with the phoenix back and you would have all the modern attachments (octo, computer, gauges and if you wanted inflator - mostly we dive w/o bc when we dive vintage).


This is true

If I leave today, and take my vintage dug out canoe, I can be there by Fall. Oh wait, in fall I need to be in VA for my annual cival war reenactment group (the south will rise again, I'm most sure of it this year...)

And maybe you can fit me into some archaic green rubber suit, with ill-fitting triangular fins, an analog depth gauge, raw lead blocks on some army surplus canvas belt, a 10" bowie knife strapped to my calf, a skinny tank with a J-valve, a black rubber mask (with a big chrome frame and a piece of plate glass) so I can go back to my lean-to on the sand and show the other cavemen I'm a vintage diver because I have a black rubber doughnut on my grille.

Maybe I'll even shoot film.

You're right - I don't get it.

Rock on you people - but I'll dive my current rig.

Thanks for the insight.

---
Ken

 

[Mo2vation]

Imagine your model had bubbles behind and not in front?

Imagine my model holding her breath for the shot.

As if I shoot models...


This one I love: Hose weights. You guys are killing me.

Excuse me, can I please get some Shoe Lace Weights? Little tiny ones would be fine. It obstructs my kick when my laces get floaty. I've cut them down, but they still bother me.

And while you're at it, how about some zipper-pull weights? When I'm lobstering wet, I hate it when my zipper pull gets all floaty.

But what I can really use on every dive: some Mask Strap Weights. Honestly. The little ends of my mask strap are all slapping my melon throughout the dive. I hate that. I know I can fix the problem with a set of mast strap weights... or maybe I can go to a 1950's mask, back to the golden age of diving. When men were men and straps were negative because they were made of black rubber and not this sissy silicone nonesense.


---
Ken

 

[pescador775]

Peter, by the time you are my age, the Mistral will be a collector's item. Hold on to it. For 21st century diving you really should go back to the future and get an Aqua Master for purpose of retrofitting with a Phoenix nozzle. Important to have the regulator inspected and upgraded with a silicone diaphragm, jack up the IP and to get new hoses with silicone check valves and replacement flutter valve. These changes will bring out the potential performance of your double hose. Remember, the single hose has been subjected to numerous engineering upgrades to achieve the performance already inherent in a totally sealed regulator which is the double hose. Thus, while using the double hose, you will not be subject to the following: freeze up, bubble ear, sand mouth, underwater disassembly, dangle clunk, lost mouthpiece, fumble knob, whistle pig, tonsil spray, and etc. However, you may be afflicted with bobber bubble. Tuck it under your arm. Enjoy, the dbl hose will last a long time between service and that's good as there is no big brother to remind you.

 

[Nemrod]

The hoses do not fill with water--lol. The very early double hose regulators did not have cage valves in the mouthpiece and they would fill with water. The stuff we are using today came along mostly well after that little invention and clear easily. The valves are on either side of the mouthpiece and prevent water from getting in the "air supply" side. Water can get in the exhaust side but it exhaust out easily when you begin breathing.

The reason a certain person is having such a LARGE change in breathing effort with position is because that CERTAIN person wears the tank hiked up behind the head way to far. Dropping the tank down and keeping it close to the back reduces the amount of "change." The Phoenix Royal Aqua Master is postion sensitive but it has so much capability it does not matter much unless you wear your tank hiked up behind your head wopping you in the back of the head like I see is common practice these days. WOB is not just inhaling effort but it also includes sustained draw (flow rate) and exhaust efforts and the Phoenix easily has a good WOB as do all Royal Aqua Masters. I have mine tuned between .25 and .5 inches of water for cracking force. Once the venturi kicks in the air almost pumps into me. Like some sh regulators such as my Legend have that variable vane and reisistance adjustment allows to adjust to a low cracking effort for easy breathing, double hose regs do not therefore adjusting below .5 inches requires finese. I have designed a variable vane mouthpiece orifice to put back pressure on the main diaphram but alas designing stuff is easy, money is required to make it happen. Oh well, I will just have to live with the planet's most capable regulator as it is. Oh, BTW, using the new silicone main diaphrams really adds to the performance as do Titan internals. The double hose regulaotrs other than the NEW Mistral do not need hose weights, that is one of the things I hate about the NEW Mistral.

Mo2vation, make fun all you like, my regulators out perform yours, are more relaible than yours and they will still be going strong in another few decades when yours are recycled into a milk carton and they are state of the art, vintage is a much over used term, way over used.

One of my buddys has a 68 Camaro, I bet it will blow the doors off a ricer with fake nitous decals, old is old only if you cannot understand that what is under his hood is state of the art as is what is under the hood of that regulator I pictured---lol.

N

 

[photohikedive]

after reading through this thread, I have seen two rather different sides.

mo2vation has swayed me though.

where could I find the Poenix conversion? is there a website that offers it?

 

[fishb0y]

The Phoenix conversions are offered through vintagedoublehose.com. Bryan was selling complete regs with the conversion.

While I own a Phoenix DAAM, I prefer to dive my vintage Mistral... volumes of air even at 100ft today.

 

[Nemrod]

If Mo2vation has swayed you then you don't need a Phoenix kit. Love my vintage Mistral also., it is a ton of fun cruising along at 110 feet with that swwooooosh, swooosh sound it makes.

N

 

[D_B]

I think that was meant "tongue in cheek"

Fascinating equipment, and good to see it updated to better than new and in use

 

[Nemrod]

LOL, the answer was already given or I would have given it for him---lol.

As to fins and mask, for Mo2vation's sake, I mostly use a Mares prescription X Vision, ScubaPro Super Jet fins, computers are not DIR and like them I mostly use analog guages and spg for the very same reasons they do. BTW, from all the threads on ScubaPro Jet Fins they can easily be described as ill fitting yet popular and they are vintage--and again like most tech oriented divers I like the "skinny" steel LP tanks. Who would want a fat, super negative tank hiked up behind their head and why--must trim like carring an anvil out front in your arms.

I would rather have a brass framed oval on my "grille" than a single hose plastic hub cap shoved in my pie face--er---grille.

Long ago when--a long story---but my front upper teeth and bones are somehat modified. The weight of a single hose hub cap in the pie face type regulator causes me nauseating pain after a few days of diving. I frankly hate them for that reason alone. The ones I have owned and used have been purchased because of their small light weight and streeamlined shape like the Omega and Tekna. Those huge Apeks really feel like I am trying to swallow a plate.
N

 

[Peter Guy]

Pescador wrote

Peter, by the time you are my age, the Mistral will be a collector's item.

How many years do you think it will be until I am your age?

Just a quick reminder, I got certified when I was in college and my cert date is Feb., 1967!

Nemrod, when I tried the "New" Mistral in the pool, I liked it only so-so. I took it back to the LDS and told them what I had felt and they then checked it out and tuned it. The "lead" instructor at the shop then bought it and he loves it, especially for his photo dives.

I'm planning on taking it to Coz with me the end of March -- but my "regular" buddy now tells me she'll only dive with me IF another DIR diver makes us a team of three (that is, if HE will dive with me!).