Vintage weight belt military 1940's?

[Akimbo]

Captain

Is it the same page as the Acrobat file in post #17 from the 1963 manual?

It would be interesting if we can determine when the Navy introduced lightweight gear and the Jack Browne (misspelled previously) mask. Wikipedia indicates that Jack Browne was an engineer at DESCO (Diving Equipment and Supply Company). A page on the Desco site says it was developed during World War II, which I just learned. It might not have been approved for the fleet until after the war???

DESCO Masks

I doubt that the Navy would have switched from cotton webbing to leather since the deep sea belts have always been leather. I wonder when wide (4"???) white (presumably cotton) webbing became available? It is all synthetic now and manufactured primarily for truck tie-downs and lifting slings.

A lot of diver-built belts and safety harnesses used to secure umbilicals to were made of conveyor belting by the late 1960s. Metal rivets replaced sewing because petrochemicals in the water would attack threads and cause unexpected failures. I am wearing one in my Avatar and the attached images are of the weightbelt I built at the same time. As I recall, the leather straps on the deep sea weightbelts were held together with copper rivets instead of sewn, but I could have just forgotten.

Jack Browne Diving Mask And Suit - NEDEG 2011 Labor Day Rally - YouTube


Thankfully, by the time I came along the drysuits were gone and we just used wetsuits. I have a Jack Browne in my "old mask stash", which most of us called "Black Death".

 

[John C. Ratliff]

It looks like that back-entry dry suit would set someone up for a suit squeeze with the Jack Browne rig. I did not see that the diver put the mask under the face seal, so I don't see any means of equalizing the suit pressure as the diver descended. When I was diving an Aquala dry suit, that was one means I had of equalizing pressure, by having my face mask under the face seal. But with the full-face mask from the DESCO system, that is not possible because it would constantly be blowing air into the suit.


Concerning the buckle that you have shown, Akimbo, that doesn't seem like the same type as what we are looking at. I saw a couple of patents on this type too, but did not include them because it was a different buckle type. Cotton webbing has been around almost forever; it is the nylon and synthetic webbing that is more "modern" (but less comfortable).

SeaRat

 

[Akimbo]

It looks like that back-entry dry suit would set someone up for a suit squeeze with the Jack Browne rig. I did not see that the diver put the mask under the face seal, so I don't see any means of equalizing the suit pressure as the diver descended…

I can’t say since these suits were long-gone by the time I came along. That brings up the rest of the equation… how did you vent the Aquala on ascent? Pop a cuff or face seal?

I guess that is what you get when one of the big Navy contractors (Desco) is in Milwaukee. We have to remember what a bastard-child diving was in the Navy until the mid-1960s.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

Akimbo, I have just re-read some of my dive logs from the 1974-5 era to see what I did with the Aquala dry suit. I got it because I was logging over a fairly long period (a year or so) that I was freezing in Yaquina Bay, Oregon and at other sites. I anticipated a problem with equalizing the suit, and so bought a LP inflator for my regulator that I could attach to the front of the suit, and put an oral inflator with a longer hose on the back of the suit to deflate it upon ascent. But I used the old-style oral inflation system, with a very small-diameter hose. In one of my logs I noted that it was inadequate to vent the suit (I floated feet up slowly to the surface as I was kicking to stay down). I had lots of problems sealing this suit with a front entry, and rare was the dive where there was no water in the suit. I wore the bottom farmer-John of a wet suit under the dry suit along with a sweater and knit hood under the dry suit, so I stayed warm even with a cup or two of water in the suit. I tried using the cuffs to vent air, but I had to wear my wet suit mitts over the seal, so that was difficult. Some air would vent from the face seal, but that was "iffy" too. The problem went away when I put a 1 inch diameter oral inflator in the back (just behind my neck) of the suit. I tried a waterproof zipper in it too, from a surplus USAF survival suit, but wasn't able to glue it in properly and so even it leaked too. Be that as it may, I stayed warmer on deeper diver that my wet suit equipped buddies. I finally sold the suit to someone who was allergic to neoprene, and have been diving a wet suit now since the 1980s.

SeaRat

 

[captain]

Captain

Is it the same page as the Acrobat file in post #17 from the 1963 manual?

It would be interesting if we can determine when the Navy introduced lightweight gear and the Jack Browne (misspelled previously) mask. Wikipedia indicates that Jack Browne was an engineer at DESCO (Diving Equipment and Supply Company). A page on the Desco site says it was developed during World War II, which I just learned. It might not have been approved for the fleet until after the war???

DESCO Masks

I doubt that the Navy would have switched from cotton webbing to leather since the deep sea belts have always been leather. I wonder when wide (4"???) white (presumably cotton) webbing became available? It is all synthetic now and manufactured primarily for truck tie-downs and lifting slings.

A lot of diver-built belts and safety harnesses used to secure umbilicals to were made of conveyor belting by the late 1960s. Metal rivets replaced sewing because petrochemicals in the water would attack threads and cause unexpected failures. I am wearing one in my Avatar and the attached images are of the weightbelt I built at the same time. As I recall, the leather straps on the deep sea weightbelts were held together with copper rivets instead of sewn, but I could have just forgotten.

Jack Browne Diving Mask And Suit - NEDEG 2011 Labor Day Rally - YouTube


Thankfully, by the time I came along the drysuits were gone and we just used wetsuits. I have a Jack Browne in my "old mask stash", which most of us called "Black Death".

Yes that is the same page.