Scubapro 109

[Couv]

....is that peanut butter on your wing?

 

[halocline]

I think you should use a series of silver mylar balloons in mesh bags tied to the hardpack, then take that to Cozumel where you can buddy up with DA and his gold plated reg. BTW, I think a platinum plated snorkel would be the ultimate accessory to both rigs.

 

[redacted]

....is that peanut butter on your wing?

If that is directed at me, of course not. Peanut butter would wash off fairly quickly. I'm pretty sure that tan blotch is from when I painted my house.

 

[Packhorse]

Well I dived my 109 today (with a MK25) and it performed faultlessly breathing as well as any of my other regs (G250s S600s) right down to 47meters (150ft).
Can anyone tell me when the 109's were first made and when they stopped?

Oh I got a quote to rechrome it for $60nz ($50us)

 

[RickPeck]

Like most answers, "it depends." The actual chrome plating is very thin, it depends on the type of metal and duration of plating for the "base coat." The company I work for makes medical instruments, and we also happen to take in outside work in our plating department. We do some of the plating for Sherwood. If the initial plating is Nickel there can be a treeing effect on the crest of the thread. This increases the major diameter of the thread out of proportion to the thickness of the actual plating.

Also, because when you plate threads you are actually plating 4 surfaces (both sides of the thread on each side of the diameter) it will make a significant change to the pitch diameter of the thread.

The short answer is... maybe. I would talk it over with the plater to tell him your concerns. They can modify the process.

 

[superstar]

I found a local plater that will do the triple plating process for $60 and a 4 to 6 week turn around. He said the threads were not an issue.

 

[halocline]

I bet it will look really great. Someday SP will come out with a reissue of the metal case 2nds, kind of like the new G250V. I wonder that one will cost?

 

[DA Aquamaster]

Well I dived my 109 today (with a MK25) and it performed faultlessly breathing as well as any of my other regs (G250s S600s) right down to 47meters (150ft).
Can anyone tell me when the 109's were first made and when they stopped?

Oh I got a quote to rechrome it for $60nz ($50us)

The orginal R109 was first made in the late 60's (1968-69) and was sold as the "Adjustable".

In the early 1980's (about 1980-81?) SP developed a balanced poppet for it and sold it along side the Adjustable as the "Balanced Adjustable" through the mid 1980s. The Adjustable could be upgraded to a Balanced Adjustable as the parts are backwards compatible and the only differences are the poppet, spring and balance chamber replacing the poppet, spring and spring pad of the R109.

When they introduced the G250 around 1985-86, the Adjustable, Balanced Adjustable and G250 were all cataloged together. The Adjustable was dropped a few years later but the Balanced Adjustable continued to be cataloged through 1990 or 91. Toward the end of it's career the Balanced Adjustable was packaged with the Mk 10 Plus as well as with the Mk 15 and the final few years of production for the Balanced Adjustable had a bead blasted chrome finish to match those regs as did all the parts SP has stocked for them since that point.

The G250 was basically a Balanced Adjustable with a plastic case and an adjustable flow vane as the internal parts are otherwise identical.

The Balanced Adjustable and G250 will perform every bit as well as the current G250Hp or S600 as they still share the same poppet assembly. In fact, if they still have the original metal orifice, the G250 and Balanced Adjustable will usually perform better than the newer models. SP switched from brass to plastic orifices in all their regs around 1994.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

I bet it will look really great. Someday SP will come out with a reissue of the metal case 2nds, kind of like the new G250V. I wonder that one will cost?

The advantage of the plastic housing is that it is cheap to produce. Dealer cost for G200, G250 and S600 housings run around $25.00 to $27.00 and I suspect SP is still making $20.00 on those parts.

In contrast dealer cost for a R109 housing is around $50.00-$55.00 and I suspect SP is both making very little on that and is also selling off old stock and probably could not make them for that price today given the expensive and labor intensive stamping, assembling, brazing, plating and polishing operations required to make one.

The sad part here is that when introduced, the cheaper to produce G250 sold for more than the brass cases but otherwise internally identical Balanced Adjustable. So we got gouged then when they used the production cost savings to pad the margin and we will get gouged going the other way as they will most likely not sacrifice profit margin if they ever market another all metal second stage.

In short I don't expect to see one anytime soon and if they do produce them, they will probably run about $100 more than a G250V to reflect the higher prduction cost.

What I can envision is a run of gold plated 50th anniverary SP Balanced Adjustables in 2013. They'd sell well to collectors as well as to all the Mk 25T owners I hope to upstage with a gold plated R109.

One issue either way is the loss of expertise that has probably occurred. Chrome plated brass second stages were a bit of a specialty item. I any industry, once you stop producing a particular technology and let the people who knew how to make it die, retire or drift to other jobs, you lose the ability to do it at all and it is expensive to relearn that technolog. Just ask NASA as they spend $ to essentially reinvent a modern verison of the Apollo CSM for their next manned space flight vehicle. The Apollo/Saturn V was a far better and more cost effective heavy lift vehicle than the Shuttle ever was, but NASA defunded and lost the entire production infastructure and corporate knowledge they had gained with the Apollo program when they pursued shuttle development.

 

[Packhorse]

Thanks for all your answers guys. You are always a wealth of info DA.

Checking the serial numbers, mine is in the high 3,000,000 while a dive buddy has a 109 in the 4milion and a BA in the 5 milion range. I asume the BA serial numbers just carried on from the 109s as they are the same case.
Any idea how many were produced?

I did notice one of my G250s has a plastic oriface with the older balanced poppet. When did they change to the all plastic poppet?

Lastly I know the chances are pretty slim but can you but the LP seats by them self as opposed to buying a whole service kit? Perhaps in packs of 10 or more?