Vintage scuba is scuba equipment dating from 1975 and earlier, and the practice of diving using such equipment.
Twin hose regulators
The most striking and well recognized example of vintage scuba gear is the twin-hose or double hose regulator, a popular style of regulator in the early years of scuba diving, since Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Emile Gagnan pioneered the first such design, the C45 Scaphandre Autonome, which was marketed in the USA (along with a tank and harness) as the Aqua-Lung. The durability of the regulators from the 1950s through the early 1970s lent them to easily be refurbished and restored. Since 2007, Vintage Double Hose, in Wesley Chapel, Florida, has been manufacturing parts for original regulators as well as a modern version of the double-hose scuba regulator. The regulator is composed of modern polymers and specialty metals. It allows for additional scuba equipment to be attached, such as a submersible pressure gauge, which overcomes one of the problems of the original double hose regulators which were not able to incorporate accessories.
Regulator features of historical interest
First stage with integral reserve valve
A number of manufacturers produced integral reserve regulators in 1961 and 1962 with reasonable market acceptance. These regulators provided a lever operated mechanical reserve valve that restricted air flow when the pressure was below 500 psi. Alerted to having a low gas supply the diver would pull a rod to open the reserve valve and surface using the remaining gas. This feature provides reserve capacity on cylinders with plain valves. With this arrangement the reserve rod must also be transferred to the cylinder in use.
Twin-hose with regulator on chest
In this unusual configuration the cylinder(s) are on the diver's back and are connected by a low pressure hose to a twin-hose regulator on the diver's chest. * A design described in Practical Mechanics magazine in January 1955 as a home-made aqualung with a first-stage on the cylinder top leading through a low pressure hose to a large round second-stage (a converted Calor Gas regulator) on the diver's chest connected to the diver's mouthpiece by a twin-hose loop. An early Australian design called a Lawson Lung was made in Sydney by a group of enthusiasts who were unable to get Aqua-lungs due to limited supply, based on the patented Costeau-Gagnan design, but modified to use available components. The regulators were made and tested at John Lawson's jewellery factory in Greenwich, North Sydney. Only 12 were made, and had to be mounted on the chest to achieve acceptable performance.
Full-face mask regulator
There have been some cases of a single-hose regulator final stage built into a full-face mask so that the mask's big front window, in conjunction with a flexible rubber seal joining it to its frame, functioned as a large and sensitive regulator diaphragm: Several versions of the Le Prieur breathing set. Yves Le Prieur first patented with Maurice Fernez, in 1926, a breathing apparatus using a mouthpiece, but as of 1933 he removed the mouthpiece and included a circular full-face mask in all following patents (like 1937, 1946 or 1947). In 1934 René Commeinhes, from Alsace (France), adapted a Rouquayrol-Denayrouze apparatus for the use of firefighters. With new 1937 and 1942 patents (GC37 and GC42), his son Georges adapted this invention to underwater breathing by means of a single hose connected to a full-face mask. Captain Trevor Hampton invented independently from Le Prieur a similar regulator-mask in the 1950s and submitted it for patent. The Royal Navy requisitioned the patent, but found no use for it and eventually released it. By then, the technology had advanced and it was too late to make this regulator-mask in bulk for sale.
Regulator models of historical interest
Ohgushi's Peerless Respirator
Invented in 1916 by Riichi Watanabi and the blacksmith Kinzo Ohgushi, and used with either surface supplied air or a 150 bar steel scuba cylinder holding 1000 litres free air, the valve supplied air to a mask over the diver's nose and eyes and the demand valve was operated by the diver's teeth. Gas flow rate was proportional to bite force. The breathing apparatus was used successfully for fishing and salvage work and by the military Japanese Underwater Unit until the end of the Pacific War.