Rubber Gasket For Wing Hose

[dberry]

I took off the corrugated hose and OPV from my Oxycheq wing to let the insides dry out after a dive, but lost the rubber gasket / washer from where the corrugated hose screws onto the wing. My natural reaction is to just cut new one from a piece of wide bicycle inner tube I keep around for bands, etc. It seems like all it needs is a ring of squishy rubber between the hard plastic flanges that get screwed together.

Is there any good reason not to do this? Or should buy an "official" part, assuming I can find one?

P.S. I'm embarrassed to admit I didn't realize the gasket was missing until my buoyancy seemed strange on my last dive and found my wing was leaking air and had taken on a half gallon of water. Oops

 

[cool_hardware52]

The ones we use in DSS wings are a custom molded part designed to stick (most of the time) in the recess of the female nut on the wing. They are pretty thick, kinda like an oring only almost square in profile. About .180" x .180" I doubt a disk cut from a innertube will be thick enough.

I'd look for a fat oring, or a sheet of much thicker rubber to cut up.

PM me your mailing address and I'll stick one in the mail if you can do without for ~week or so.

Reminds me of the time I had to make a gasket for paint pressure pot and I cut up the sole of an old tennis shoe. It almost worked.


Tobin

 

[tbone1004]

i'd call tobin and get one of his. Would be worth grabbing one of his dump valves as well since his are vastly superior to the ones on most rigs. If you can wait until next weekend for it, John at Northeast Scuba Supply should have some in stock

 

[dberry]

Yah, now that I think about it, I can sort of picture the washer - about the thickness of a garden hose washer, but wider and with a pattern of concentric circles on one face. It's probably still in the bathroom of the AirBnB where I stayed in San Diego...

Thanks for the advice. I'll get the real thing.

And if you've got the time, please educate me about different types of dump valves.

-Don

 

[tbone1004]

Tobin's are awesome, the rest are the standard variety of "meh". It's hard to explain but once you see them next to each other the quality improvement is huge. The biggest one is the use of 3mm cord instead of the normal thin cave line. When diving with gloves it makes a huge improvement in being able to find/grab the cord without having to use a big pull knob

 

[cool_hardware52]

Here is a (not very good) pic of the gasket / washer in question.

Tobin

 

[Couv]

That is very generous of Tobin to offer a gasket from his line to someone who uses a competitor's wing. If by chance it does not fit, try a Dive Rite flange gasket. I too lost (left it on the bed at Scuba Club Coz) that same item from my Oxycheq wing and replaced it with one from DGX Dive Rite Bladder Flange Gasket | Dive Gear Express®.

 

[uncfnp]

That is very generous of Tobin to offer a gasket from his line to someone who uses a competitor's wing. If by chance it does not fit, try a Dive Rite flange gasket. I too lost (left it on the bed at Scuba Club Coz) that same item from my Oxycheq wing and replaced it with one from DGX Dive Rite Bladder Flange Gasket | Dive Gear Express®.

And I recommend ordering a spare or two for the save a dive kit.

 

[cool_hardware52]

That is very generous of Tobin to offer a gasket from his line to someone who uses a competitor's wing. If by chance it does not fit, try a Dive Rite flange gasket. I too lost (left it on the bed at Scuba Club Coz) that same item from my Oxycheq wing and replaced it with one from DGX Dive Rite Bladder Flange Gasket | Dive Gear Express®.

Often these gaskets will stick to the flat face of the elbow when the elbow and hose is removed from a wing. One of the key reasons we recommend against removing the hose for routine rinsing.

The DSS gasket is supposed to be a tight fit in the 12 sided recess in the nut on the wing, and stay in the nut, not fall out loose or stick to the face of the elbow. Most of the time this works as designed, but occasionally the DSS Gaskets will stick to the elbow. A black gasket on the face of a black elbow is easy to miss.

DSS makes all of our own wing fittings, T nuts, Outer Nuts, Elbows, Elbow retainer nuts, sealing gaskets bladder gaskets, and inner seat retainer and out cage for the OPV.

We mold these out of Acetal (delrin) CNC machine the threads if required post machining. I just wasn't happy with the ABS parts common in the industry and the molded thread they had. Machining the threads allows for much better tolerances. It also allows us to address some aggravating issues with the parts commonly used in the industry. An example is the "outer nut" that has id threads to secure it to the T nut, and OD threads to mount either the elbow or OPV. It's really common for these nuts to get stuck inside the body of an OPV, and unscrew off the T nut. It can be very difficult to get the nut out of the OPV because there is nothing to grasp the nut by. That makes servicing the OPV impossible as it cannot be disassemble.

When we designed the mold for The DSS nuts we added a large hex that offers a means to turn the nut if it gets stuck in the OPV.

Having a injection mold shop in house provides the chance to make these small changes that most divers will never notice, but when that day comes where you really need to change the seat in your OPV it's nice to be able to turn the %^**(%$&$ nut.

Our parts were for the most part based on the "industry standard" parts, and in most cases are interchangeable, but sometime "Tolerance Stackup" strikes.

Tobin

 

[Akimbo]

I got sick of the gasket falling out so glued in one the bladder side with silicon cement. It is easy to peal off and whip the cement off but adhesive enough to reliably hold for years.