- It is over a year since I started this. Sea Hunt Jerry gave me a set of damaged Voit Navy cans. I bought a backside Mistral can from the Scuba Museum. So then I figured to repair the holes in the front can and refinish everything. Well, I removed the chrome with muriatic acid and found nickel underneath. That took a more expensive stripping solution but that cleaned everything down to the brass...
- By this time I had bought a "Mistral Guts" package from the Scuba Museum and stripped that down to brass, too. Repairing the holes in the front can stopped me for awhile. Should I braze them? Should I solder them? Turns out solder will stick to the electroless nickel plating I planned. But I got to thinking I'm putting a lot into this only to do a half-way job on the plating. So, I sent it off to Dave for can repair and authentic plating...
- As you can see, the parts came back last year in May... And they were beautiful. But other projects and Summer caused me to set this aside for awhile. When I tried to re-assemble everything last Fall, I had leaks and fitting problems due to my not taking time to clean-up the plating. Then finally last weekend I took some 0000 Fine steel wool on the end of a pencil with a new eraser, and cleaned up the high pressure orifice in the valve. That solved my leaking problem. Some 600 grit sand paper cleaned up the tank connection nozzle where the plating got a little too thick... And that solved my fitting problem.
- Taking Liberties... My original intent was for this to be authentic first generation Mike Nelson Voit... With green hoses, straight green mouthpiece, and Tinnerman clamps. But now that it's done up so pretty, I don't want to relegate it to being a wall hanger. My more modern gray hoses and green curved mouthpiece are still "Voit", and there probably were Voit VR1 owners who upgraded to the newer hoses and mouthpiece... Don't you think?.
- I have the green hoses, straight mouthpiece, and Tinnerman clamps all done up and ready to install if I need total authenticity. But I'm gonna be diving this baby and I prefer the curved mouthpiece for comfort and appearance!
- I rebuilt the Mistral guts with one of Bryan's VDH Single Stage Kits. The "Voit Lung" label is from Allan's A and D Adventures (link is in the VDH store). Hoses and mouthpieces came from Rob's Scuba Museum. Hose clamps, wagon wheels, and silicon diaphragm came from Bryan's VDH store.
- BTW, The newer VDH single stage diaphragms make a definite improvement in breathing ease on a Mistral. My first assembly of this VR1 did not breathe as easy as my other Mistral. Changing the diaphragm truly made it better.
Thanks everyone for your kind remarks. It's nice to be able to show this off to people who understand what it is.
