Pros & Cons of Vintage Gear

[ScubaJoy65]

Is it safe to dive with vintage gear? What are the advantages and/or disadvantages of more current gear?

 

[DA Aquamaster]

It is safe, assumiong you use proper techniques and a redundant air source in some cases. The pros and cons are pretty much in the eye of the beholder.

I do enjoy being lightly loaded and comparatively streamlined in vintage gear (cam pack, horsecollar BC and a double hose reg) but it is not real ammenble to technical diving.

On most double hose regs, you can not use modern low pressure accessories like power inflators and octos. So many vintage divers carry a pony or use doubles and a Sherwood manifold with the double hose on the center post and a back up single hose reg on the right post. The octo and power inflator can then be run off the single hose reg.

Another option is to use a DA Aquamaster with the octo or power inflator running off an adapter on the hookah port (originally intended for surface supplied air).

Most double hose regs lack a high pressure port needed to attach an SPG, but many double hose regs can have an SPG attached using a banjo fitting that goes between the tank valve and the regulator. This provides a 3/8" high pressure port for older 3/8" SPG hoses. Another option for an SPG is to use a vintage K or J valve with a 3/8" HP port built into the valve itself.

Luis on the board here designed the Phoenix nozzle that can be used to replace the original nozzle on a DA Aquamaster or Royal Aquamaster and provide it with 3 LP and 3 HP ports. That allows the double hose reg to then be used with the same attachments as a modern reg.

Breathing wise, they can be quite good but it requires mounting the tank and reg much lower on your back than is customary with modern equipment which can cause some compatibility issues and it will still tend to breathe much harder than a single hose reg if you have perfectly horizontal trim - one of several reasons it does not work so hot for technical diving.

I also like the double hose reg for photography as it diffuses the bubbles more and places them behind your head where they scare fish a lot less.

 

[spectrum]

The biggest thing is wanting to be out on the edge a little. Not from a safety standpoint but in terms of support. You need to be willing to learn about the stuff since few shops will even touch the stuff. There are some real pro's working on vintage gear but it may mean shipping things around. The care of the gear in and of it's self becomes a very real part of the sport. Parts availability runs the gamut from plentiful to NADA so you need to know what you are getting.

Regulators will be more spartan unless you do something like a Phoenix conversion. You may need to go without some low pressure accessories or adapt them in other ways.

BC's can be horse collars or older jackets. I have 2 real nice items that just arrived the other day that I'm looking forward to trying. They are simpler. The dumps and D rings are scarce on the BC but it has a great retro look! Of course if the conditions are right you can go sans BC.

Another pastime of mine is collecting vintage snow blowers. It's the same thing with my Gilsons. The last unit rolled off the line 20 years ago and many parts are obsolete. I collect machines for parts, fabricate some, and otherwise work around the reality of the situation.

The rewards of both endeavors is getting to use some cool priceless stuff that others only dream about.

Unless you inherit a mother load of vintage gear don't count on it being a cost saver. Old does not equal inexpensive in this stuff but there can be bargains on some items.

Pete

 

[duckbill]

Kind of like asking what the pros and cons are to driving vintage automobiles. It just has to be your thing.

And, like driving vintage automobiles, you mainly have to beware of all the nuts around you driving them modern buggies who shouldn't even be licensed :confused6:

 

[David Wilson]

I've snorkelled with what is now vintage equipment since the late 1950s. When producers of fins and masks decided to make their products from what they called "space-age materials", I simply couldn't see the point, except as a way of reducing manufacturing costs for themselves and raising prices for their customers. If it ain't broke, why fix it?

I see a virtue in simplicity and I dislike modern tendencies to over-engineer equipment. I believe you can be eclectic when it comes to the development of technology. I don't buy into the idea that what is new is always better than what it is trying to replace. Product development can be more about trade-offs than real progress, that is, new things often come with disadvantages as well as benefits. I remember my sadness when Mares discontinued its excellent line in full-foot natural rubber fins in favour of plastic-bladed affairs with synthetic foot pockets. I experienced some "Schadenfreude" when I noticed a bargain bin in one London dive store containing a pair of such composite fins with the blades slowly delaminating from the foot pockets. Traditional fins may be heavier than modern ones, but they will last for ever. As for masks, I've never suffered from allergies, so I wondered why everybody now had to buy masks with silicone skirts that were only available in a choice of clear and black.

 

[Luis H]

Is it safe to dive with vintage gear? What are the advantages and/or disadvantages of more current gear?

There are many ways to answer this (and IMO there are some very good answers above). My short answer is that it is very safe. Some vintage gear may lack some of the conveniences that some modern gear may have, but the simplicity of a lot of vintage gear actually makes in general more reliable.

For example, a vintage single hose regulator like the Scubapro Mk-5/ 109 or a Conshelf will have all the performance of most of its latest derivative, but far fewer separate parts and dissimilar materials (mostly plastics). The metal housing in a vintage second stage is very expensive to manufacture, but it has many advantages discussed on many other threads (durability, good heat transfer, etc.)

The focal point on many vintage equipment divers is the double hose regulator. Not all double hose regulators are the same, but the ones in use the most now a day are very reliable with minimal number of parts that can fail. Some, like the single stage Mistral are so simple that it was Cousteau favorite regulator for its reliability.


We dove with vintage gear back when it was new and it has always been very safe. Some seem to think that we were dropping like flies, but we weren’t. Safety has never been an issue, but maybe everything was not as convenient.

We didn’t have the convenience (and perhaps associated safety) of computers that continually kept track of our depth, time, nitrogen loading, etc. We had to do that ourselves and use tables for repetitive diving. But, we were just a bit conservative to be safe and it only became a minor inconvenience.

Flotation devices were mostly for surface use. We had to be much more conscious and careful about proper weight selection. At first this may seem as an inconvenience, but in the long run it reinforces better skills.

We did tend to focus on safety is initiated by having proper knowledge and skills, the gear was secondary.

 

[pescador775]

I used vintage, rubber duck feet for decades; then, in 1999, switched to modern, rubber biofins. I also dropped the Scubapro mechanical decompression meter in favor of electronic when I started breathing NITROX. Otherwise, I continue to use a number of vintage items when it suits me. Diving with vintage gear is partly nostalgia like deer hunting with black powder guns. However, I must say that a diver equipped with 1960's gear can still do pretty much whatever a "modern" recreational diver is planning. The outfit may seem a bit more spartan and leaner without the pockets of signalling devices, folding snorkels, 7 foot hoses and so forth. Instead, there would be a harness and vest with whistle, and black rubber snorkel mounted to the oval mask or slung in a belt or strap. (I wear the black DACOR snorkel with corrugated extension which hangs inside the double hoses). The simple, oval mask of black rubber still makes an excellent seal, almost foolproof. As far as the regulator, it breaths harder in horizontal posture but I like the way the mouthpiece hangs under the chin, the hoses are balanced and light in use, and nothing drags in the sand, bangs into something, or gets caught under a strap, unless it's another strap (G). I believe that a smooth skin wetsuit is more flexible and dries quicker on deck. Looks cool, too. Those "tech" divers have been copying our vintage look. I think that they should wear lime green.

 

[Alex777]

Safety is mostly a function of the water & diving skills of the individual diver, not the pieces of gear he or she chooses to use. In my limited experience with a PRAM, it's as safe as anything else.

PS - Thanks, Luis, for engineering the Phoenix adapter - a great contribution to the sport!

 

[Nemrod]

Is it safe to dive with vintage gear? What are the advantages and/or disadvantages of more current gear?

Mostly that you don't need to know how to swim or actually even to dive when enscounced in your 800 dollars poodle air bag replete with 50 D rings, rocket powered weight jettison and ultra padding.

N

 

[oldmossback]

Is it safe to dive with vintage gear? What are the advantages and/or disadvantages of more current gear?

Vintage gear was very simple and clean...ie: nothing hanging out in the current.
To my way of thinking, simple is good....simple is safer than the busy modern stuff. Vintage gear does not lull you into thinking to relying on the gear to save your butt. I hear about this way to often. Modern, to a greater degree, gives a person a false sense of security.

For the average diver, Regs were and still are as equal to today's save for they were made of brass not plastic........some breathed great, some breathed badly.......High end regs and regs. for commercial use are of course much more efficent.

It takes care and knowledge today to keep the old regs working and some of them breath better with the more modern materials used today......ex: silicon diaphgrams.
Some, like the USD DA and RAM use some of the same parts inside as the Titan. USD was intelligent enough not to change what worked. Improved materials yes....but not change.

Also, modern regs with all these long hoses make a diver look like a scorpion fish. And you still have that weight hanging off your teeth.....unlike a doublehose which floats in your mouth for the most part.

BC's today are way too busy..........all you need one for is to maintain bouancy. And you need little of that if you are weighted correctly in the first place. And what is with all these pockets? I see in the last few years some reverse strides in bc construction back to simple.....Diverite I believe has a good simple rig.......

But to answer your question: Vintage is good and I believe safer than modern if you have the knowledge on how to use it....it makes you think and know your limitations.......however, I recommend you hook up with a knowledgeable diver with vintage gear experience.........

Modern equipment that has no previous equal?.......dive lights, dive computers, wet suits, dry suits....various tanks........trash the masks and fins........jet fins and round masks are the way to go. IMHO
Oldmossback