Vintage gear demo II - Iara

[Eric Sedletzky]

OK, here's another one:
YouTube - ‪Vintage Dive Gear Demo 2‬‏

I'm not so much interested in the video as a few other things such as:
She's from San Francisco and dives in Monterey,
Who in the city is she getting her vintage equipment from and who is teaching her to use it.
The stuff is in operational so that would mean it has to have been serviced I suppose. I wonder if the parts are being purchased from VDH or another source.

Any body here helping with this?
I wonder since the vintage community is so incredibly small and there are only a handfull of vintage divers in the entire state. I'd think somebody in the city diving and collecting vintage gear we'd know about.

 

[Mike Lev]

So what are you interested in her or the gear?There are many vintage divers not just a hand full or two.Not all are on vintage dive sites either.Many people service there own gear also.Most vintage collectors dive some vintage gear maybe not all the time.Some do modern and old gear also.Peolpe have been diving vintage gear long before any of the vinatge sites came around.I'm just saying.

 

[elmer fudd]

Well, it does say, "Special thanks to Jim Steele", just before the ending.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

So what are you interested in her or the gear?There are many vintage divers not just a hand full or two.Not all are on vintage dive sites either.Many people service there own gear also.Most vintage collectors dive some vintage gear maybe not all the time.Some do modern and old gear also.Peolpe have been diving vintage gear long before any of the vinatge sites came around.I'm just saying.

I'm interested in the gear and the source of the gear.
I know there are other vintage divers out there besides the ones who hang out on the boards. These are the ones I am interested in as a network option and also for the gear resource. These videos are the first clue I have seen that there may be a vintage dive community in a parallel universe out there in my local area that I don't know about and would like to know about. I saw those videos and was curious because I could almost bet it wasn't her collecting and maintaining the gear.
There had to be someone else local with some know how involved.
But now thanks to Elmer I think I have a lead.

I have to remember, not everybody hangs out on scubaboard, some people actually have a life.

 

[Paladin]

Original Steele's Discount Scuba
60th & Telegraph Av
Oakland, CA 94617
510.655.4344
Huge Selection of Dive Equipment and Family owned and run since 1939.

 

[Luis H]

The tank manifold had leaks on both joints. It doesn't look like the equipment is in top shape.

Except for the duckbill must of the parts on double hose regulators are very durable. Performance drops with stiffer diaphragms, etc. , but the regulator is still kind of usable (that is in part why so many DH have a bad reputation of poor performers). I have seen many Aqua Masters and RAM that have not been serviced since the 70's or 60's and they still work OK.

Manny collectors and vintage equipment divers used to rely heavily on NOS parts or make them themselves. For duckbills I known many things have been used like bicycle inner tubes, condoms, etc.

It is just great that now we have silicone replacement parts that improve performance on everything from diaphragms to ultra soft mushroom valves. The newest mouthpiece valves are so much better performance that I can't measure any flow impedance. The same thing for the duckbill eliminator, the performance is outstanding. We are just getting spoiled with the availability of all the parts we need. We now have new reproduction and many improved rubber parts, hp seats, metal parts, etc.

A few years back no one would have dreamed that we would have not just good reproduction silicone hoses, but hoses in several colors, and silicone mouthpieces in several styles and colors... etc.

I say that we can thank the Internet for bringing enough of a community together that makes it reasonable for parts to be manufactured.

As Paladin is pointing out, it is probably a dive shop that owns the equipment and could have a good stock of NOS parts. There are many of them all over the US. Again, the equipment on the video doesn't look like it is in pristine shape... It could be that it is what a dive shop has on their vintage display... they just took good care of it.

 

[Mike Lev]

Hello Paladin you sure about that 1939 part?I know they were doing scuba then.It didn't start till 1949 in the U.S.

 

[Paladin]

Hello Paladin you sure about that 1939 part?I know they were doing scuba then.It didn't start till 1949 in the U.S.

I just copied and pasted what I found on the net. Here is the URL:

http://www.abalonediving.com/node/42

 

[Mike Lev]

Thanks Mike.

 

[Luis H]

It is too bad that Steele's Discount Scuba doesn’t seem to have a web site. It looks like an interesting place. If you go to Google maps you can see a street view of the shop. It does look like it has been there for a long time.



The girl is cute and I like her voice, but she doesn’t seem to be very well informed. The statement that old back packs needed a crotch strap because they were not very contoured makes no sense. Many of us will always use crotch straps and technical divers also use them now a day.

Cousteau’s favorite regulator was the Mistral, but as far as I know it was the Spirotechnique Mistral, not the US Divers.

And then there was in the other video the thing about taking off your mask to equalize your ears. I never heard of anyone doing that, but if they did… never mind.


I do like the videos and think that over all she is doing a good job. I just think that the details are important.