Vintage Double Hose

I finally have my Mistral converted DX together after a year almost to the day. I owe a debt of gratitude to Douchebag and Bryan.
Initially I had it rechromed, and then Dave redid the satin part as it was not good enough as done by the original chromer. It is beautiful now with all new goodies. A few before pictures below.

Great restoration. Congrats

"Almost" too nice to dive!

Jim

Very Nice. As one who has tried, I'd like to know how that label came out so good?

Absolutely beautiful! Thanks for posting the pictures and story. How did you get the rivets on the label so perfect?

Thanks guys for the comments. On the label: It was easier to refinish then a tabbed one as I think the metal is thicker to start with and not having tabs being bent over that distort the flat surface. Removing the original rivets was by far the worst, worrying about nicking or distorting the can. There was still a bit of distortion from the rivets. A little tapping on a flat surface drew it flat. To repaint I did the method posted here that I have used on others. Paint, let the paint flash dry and then rub on paper with a few drops of acetone on a piece of glass. For the rivets, I had a friend who is a watch maker do them in trade for a case of beer. My hands are not steady enough for such fine work. Put the rivets in, trim to length, then tap from the backside with a tiny hammer to form them. He used a small round anvil to support the front label side and that gave them the right shape, flattening the round head into a trapezoidal shape.

Dave does great work!

So beautiful!!!!

Man, that looks so HOT it will burn to the touch!....OUTCH!!!
Ranks up top, for sure......

usd

A beautiful job on a fine regulator. The chrome, label and rivet work are all superb. Did I read you correctly that you upgraded the internals to Mistral? It makes perfect sense as the metal mouthpiece and the hose within the intake hose are impossible to find. Looks like a very special regulator, enjoy it.

This regulator was long long ago converted to be a mistral. I have it now setup and working as an original configuration DX. Finding an original mouthpiece allowed this. I still had to make a nozzle (filled a mistral nozzle and redrilled to size), and a check plate. The mouthpiece had had part of the hose nipple sawed off - so I had to make and silver solder on an end. I owe a lot of thanks to several people who helped me out immensely with this. Last thing I need is to find some original tinnerman clamps for the hose ends.

+++ On the ingenuity and craftsmanship

That really is great. Lots to be proud of there.

I came into a matching crusty-critter over-pressure not too long ago. It had also had its internals/hoses/mp converted early on.

Do you have any additional photos/details of what all you did to resurect those assemblies? I'm not sure what I'm looking at in the one with the MP standing on end.

Fred

Fred,
All the pictures I have taken that I can find of this project I have added to this Flickr set:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vair1961/s ... 007424989/

Some are repetitious, but it shows it from when I got it, soldering cracks in the cans, initial overhaul, after overhaul, the cans after initial chrome, then the re-chrome of the satin box, then setup again as a mistral and finally finished setup with the DX parts.

The picture of the mouthpiece was soldering on the nipple for the hose and where the checkplate goes. Originally the green hose pressed on over the nipple and was retained with a wire hose clamp. This had been cut off (for some unknown reason) on the mouthpiece I got. So I made a new end out of brass tubing. The pink compound is kool jewel. Used in jewelry making for protecting jems etc from heat when soldering. I used it to insulate the rest of the mouthpiece from heat while soldering so as to not discolor the chrome.

Geoff,

That looks outstanding, better than new even. Thank You for sharing.