Vintage?

[David Wilson]

In the 70’s I bought some Poseidon tank valves and valve replacement parts from Lillywhites. I still have some of the receipts and letters from them. What ever happened to Lillywhites? Thanks

The Wikipedia article about Lillywhites
Lillywhites - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
traces the decline of this once great sporting goods store. I guess competition from cheaper outlets, which focus nowadays on leisure clothing for street wear, has taken its toll over the years. As I suggested in my previous message, the Piccadilly store appeared to be a shadow of its former self a couple of years ago, when I last visited London. The underwater sports department, which was at its best between the 1950s the 1970s, publishing its own catalogue each year, has all but ceased to exist last time I looked. There are still several diving equipment stores in London, of course, notably Ocean Leisure near Charing Cross.

 

[AfterDark]

A full shutdown of a Mistral during a dive is not totally impossible but it would be vary very rare. Either a loosening of the lever plate so the force of the diaphragm never gets to the seat or a loose contaminant in the seat chamber jambing the seat from moving are remote possibilities. The soft part of the seat could possibly come loose and greatly restrict flow. These same things could happen in other regulator designs along with other possible failures in more complex regulators, making the Mistral probably the most reliable regulator ever made.

If the Mistral is the all plastic housing double hose USD regulator that would be me. As I said in my post it was a long time ago I was kid and didn't know much about regualtors (and still don't) at the time. After the incident I took the reg. to the LDS I was doing business with, the owner examined it and told me whoever the last one to work on it did or didn't do something to it. The guy I was buddying with was the owner and reg serviceman on it, I had borrowed it from him because mine was in the shop and he wanted someone to dive with.
It was less than 10 minutes into the dive all was well we were foolishly making a bounce dive to 100+' because we were young and stupid's at 70' I exhaled went to inhale.... nothing, looked around for my buddy who was suppose to be behind me. No buddy, so up I went scared and wondering how'll know when to start exhaling? Round about 50' - 45' I began to exhale and continued to the surface. I've never used another borrowed regualtor again.NEVER.

 

[RickI]

Nice equipment, looks in great shape too! Does anyone remember the housed USD dive tank system they marketed in the USA? I recall there were three smaller tanks in a triple manifold inside a rectangular yellow fared ABS housing. Never caught on in this country, might have done better in Europe.

Did a quick search for Lillywhites and came across:

Photo from http://www.hydroglove.com/pdf/lillywhites-suits-10.pdf

I have little doubt this is the inspiration for current snorkel design. Will lay bets that the snorkel gnomes will be marketing something like this within a few years.

The wetsuit was under the Lillywhite label, not sure about the mask?

 

[WD8CDH]

Hi Rick,

I have one of those USD triple systems. It was called the UDS-1. It had 3 35CF tanks with a manifold that had the first stage of the regulator built in the manifold. It actually was very nice to dive.

 

[David Wilson]

Several models of snorkel mask were manufactured as early as the 1950s in Europe. The following file contains information about, and illustrations of, a few early examples, mostly with one snorkel:
http://www.hdsitalia.com/articoli/20_attrezzature.pdf
I also recall seeing masks of this kind in stores selling snorkelling equipment during the 1960s. There are still one or two snorkel masks in production, for example the following product of Greek diving equipment manufacturer Majorca Sub:

Snorkel masks fell out of favour over the years, but I remember a recent thread on a spearfishing forum where the original poster was seeking a snorkel mask for someone who wanted to float on the surface of the water without diving, watching the sea life below, but gagged when using a conventional snorkel. I think the thread had a positive outcome for the OP in the form of the twin-snorkel mask below, made by another Greek diving equipment maker, Eurobalco:

You can read the full thread at
http://www.medfish.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4185

 

[RickI]

Thank you for the ID Ron, recall the name now that you mention it. It seemed like an interesting departure at the time, good volume, 105 cft. in a smaller ergonomic package. It seemed to have been inspired by the silver fared tank system Cousteau was fond of using. It came out fairly early during the introduction of aluminum tanks to the public market in the USA too. Found a good reference to the system:

From: Diving Machines,submarines, submersibles, minisubs, personal subs, subs, tourist subs


Bet it works out well in stronger current. Are the tanks holding up well?

I had it beat in terms of volume at the time, but no where in terms of weight, bulk or ease of use with a pair of Northhill 90 cft. aluminum tanks complete with UDT Frog decals. As I recall, 72 cft was about it at the time, with aluminum 80's coming out in short order. There were great until one of the fluted base plugs in the bottom of one of the tanks started to leak?!

Hi Rick,

I have one of those USD triple systems. It was called the UDS-1. It had 3 35CF tanks with a manifold that had the first stage of the regulator built in the manifold. It actually was very nice to dive.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

If the Mistral is the all plastic housing double hose USD regulator that would be me. As I said in my post it was a long time ago I was kid and didn't know much about regualtors (and still don't) at the time. After the incident I took the reg. to the LDS I was doing business with, the owner examined it and told me whoever the last one to work on it did or didn't do something to it. The guy I was buddying with was the owner and reg serviceman on it, I had borrowed it from him because mine was in the shop and he wanted someone to dive with.
It was less than 10 minutes into the dive all was well we were foolishly making a bounce dive to 100+' because we were young and stupid's at 70' I exhaled went to inhale.... nothing, looked around for my buddy who was suppose to be behind me. No buddy, so up I went scared and wondering how'll know when to start exhaling? Round about 50' - 45' I began to exhale and continued to the surface. I've never used another borrowed regualtor again.NEVER.

Afterdark,

Thanks for this post; for some reason I could not find this before. I think I know what happened, and to what regulator. You were probably diving an AMF Voit 50 Fathom regulator, with either a downstream single stage or the upstream single stage. This regulator would have been made of blue plastic. Is that what you were using? The other choice for the color of the regulator is a rose-colored or black regulator. If it was the rose-colored or black regulator, that would be a US Divers Jet Air, which has the same mechanism as a Mistral.

The reason I feel it was probably the AMF Voit is that they have the level system adjusted by sliding the lever plate, rather than using a wheel on a threaded post to adjust the levels (Mistral). But I have a feeling it was the VCR-2 50 Fathom (manufactured from 1959-61), with its downstream mechanism. The mechanism was not properly tightened, and because the lever system exerts pressure against this lever plate, which slides on the body to adjust the lever height, the act of breathing would loosen this plate and slide it out of position, lowering the lever height so that the suction of breathing would no longer actuate the valve. This regulator requires that the lever plate be screwed tightly against the body to function well. The plastic version of this regulator was manufactured in 1961, according to Fred Roberts is Basic Scuba.

This could have also happened if you used the AMF Voit V55 Blue 50 Fathom (1962+), which had an upstream valve, but also had a mechanism which relied upon a slot in the lever plate to adjust the lever height with a special tool. Fred Roberts says:

The compound demand levers, secondary lever (18), on top, and the primary lever (17), below, are retained and captured by lever plate (16) held to body (12) by our socket head cap screws (19). An oval slot is provided in lever plate (16) for fine lever adjustments with the screws slightly loose. A special tool is required for this operation if the slot is so utilized. However, lacking this tool the levers can be bent to hand trim final lever position with respect to the diaphragm.

In my mind, perhaps leaving these screws loose could also cause a problem. However, if I had to bet on it, I'd bet that it was the downstream valve design that caused this problem. This is important for vintage divers who dive this design; be sure that those screws are tight!

Now, Afterdark, the litmus test--was the regulator you used red, black or blue?

SeaRat

 

[John C. Ratliff]

Thank you for the ID Ron, recall the name now that you mention it. It seemed like an interesting departure at the time, good volume, 105 cft. in a smaller ergonomic package. It seemed to have been inspired by the silver fared tank system Cousteau was fond of using. It came out fairly early during the introduction of aluminum tanks to the public market in the USA too. Found a good reference to the system:

From: Diving Machines,submarines, submersibles, minisubs, personal subs, subs, tourist subs


Bet it works out well in stronger current. Are the tanks holding up well?

I had it beat in terms of volume at the time, but no where in terms of weight, bulk or ease of use with a pair of Northhill 90 cft. aluminum tanks complete with UDT Frog decals. As I recall, 72 cft was about it at the time, with aluminum 80's coming out in short order. There were great until one of the fluted base plugs in the bottom of one of the tanks started to leak?!

I also have a UDS-1 (Unified Diving System-1) from USD, although right now it is under the weather because the stem on the refilling hose broke, and I cannot fill it. But I have written extensively about the UDS-1 here, and invite you to read about my work on that system (there's four pages of material there on the UDS-1).

SeaRat

 

[AfterDark]

It was black plastic and definatly USD. I"m sure they were / are great regs. The problem wirh this one was the owner thinking he was a regulator repair man. He was a few years older than I and had been diving 4 wholes years!! As opposed to me starting my 2nd year. I trusted the wrong person.

 

[WD8CDH]

I also have a UDS-1 (Unified Diving System-1) from USD, although right now it is under the weather because the stem on the refilling hose broke, and I cannot fill it. But I have written extensively about the UDS-1 here, and invite you to read about my work on that system (there's four pages of material there on the UDS-1).

SeaRat

What do you think of that blue shell in the photo? I don't remember anything other than the yellow ones and the blue one doesn't really look painted.