Vintage Double Hose

- I've been test diving a couple of twin tanks set ups to get the right buoyancy. And, it being that Vintage Divers don't rely on a BC, it occurs to me that a divers weight belt becomes a very well thought out and personal piece of equipment.

- The weight belt on top is what I use with my Sportways Twin 42 tanks when wearing a 3mm wetsuit with 3mm hooded vest. Those are just two 1 lb weights for a total of 2 lbs. Why not a single 2 lb weight? It's for looks, man! Also even distribution. The knife is modern but sharp and handy. The belt and buckle are vintage USD and Dacor.
- The weight belt on the bottom is what I use with my USD Twin 38 tanks when wearing the same 3mm wetsuit with 3mm hooded vest. That's four 2 lb weights for a total of 8 lbs. The knife is vintage '70s ScubaPro... It's dull and heavy but really cool looking! I made the belt from cotton webbing with a vintage quick release buckle I got from VDH. I added some adjustability with a modern plastic slide buckle.

What can I say, I'm cheep. The blue belt is 28lb for use with my 7mm wet suit and earned the nick name chisel belt at my dive certification because the shop owner thought I chiseled them out of a solid piece of lead. The other belt is for another suit and weights from 8-18.5lbs depending on water and tank I'm using.

When I started diving I was using my cousins equipment to start on. We didn't have enough weights for two belts so I vacuum packed some of my shot gun slugs and musket balls to go in my rig. Naturally I lost on pouch. You can imagine my surprise when I found it on last nights dive after over a year of keeping an eye out for it.

Yes, I know this is an old topic... Anyway, here is a cotton weight belt I put together. I wanted one to use with my Healthways Tank and Scuba Star Reg. and now in the future my SCUBA double hose. From what I've heard, this blue was used with some Healthways items, so I grabbed one in that colour.
In the future I'd love to replace the weights with others, but these will work for now.
Mark

http://vintagescubastuff.com

Sent from my SM-T810 using Tapatalk

SurfLung wrote:- I've been test diving a couple of twin tanks set ups to get the right buoyancy. And, it being that Vintage Divers don't rely on a BC, it occurs to me that a divers weight belt becomes a very well thought out and personal piece of equipment.

- The weight belt on top is what I use with my Sportways Twin 42 tanks when wearing a 3mm wetsuit with 3mm hooded vest. Those are just two 1 lb weights for a total of 2 lbs. Why not a single 2 lb weight? It's for looks, man! Also even distribution. The knife is modern but sharp and handy. The belt and buckle are vintage USD and Dacor.
- The weight belt on the bottom is what I use with my USD Twin 38 tanks when wearing the same 3mm wetsuit with 3mm hooded vest. That's four 2 lb weights for a total of 8 lbs. The knife is vintage '70s ScubaPro... It's dull and heavy but really cool looking! I made the belt from cotton webbing with a vintage quick release buckle I got from VDH. I added some adjustability with a modern plastic slide buckle.

The end of the belt with the D for the bail quick release should not be riveted on permanently. When properly threaded with the webbing it is the adjustment.

When diving in Monterey bay in my 7mil farmer john, I just need too much weight for my old school weight belts to work. So, I use a more modern pouch based belt with some 2" webbing made into suspenders to keep from having the bastard ride down my hips.
When diving minimalist, I either toss some weight in the pouch on my XS Companion, or I wear a 2" standard weight belt with a couple of pounds around my kidney area if I'm going without a BC.

I just use whatever vintage weight belt I have laying around. I try to always pick one with a USD Boba Fett buckle, but other than that I don't really pay much attention to my weight belt other than making sure I have the correct weight on it. I do try to balance my overall buoyancy so that I can dive in Puget Sound with too much extra weight. I have managed to run a 16lb weight belt with my current vintage style freediving wetsuit (unlined) and a steel 72. I run it as 2 8 lb kidney weights, one on each side.

2 inch rubber with wire buckle assembly - once I went rubber I couldn't imagine going back to webbing because it's just one less thing that I need to pay attention to. It's tight on the surface and just as tight at 50 ft with a 1/4 inch wetsuit

captain wrote:

SurfLung wrote:- I've been test diving a couple of twin tanks set ups to get the right buoyancy. And, it being that Vintage Divers don't rely on a BC, it occurs to me that a divers weight belt becomes a very well thought out and personal piece of equipment.

- The weight belt on top is what I use with my Sportways Twin 42 tanks when wearing a 3mm wetsuit with 3mm hooded vest. Those are just two 1 lb weights for a total of 2 lbs. Why not a single 2 lb weight? It's for looks, man! Also even distribution. The knife is modern but sharp and handy. The belt and buckle are vintage USD and Dacor.
- The weight belt on the bottom is what I use with my USD Twin 38 tanks when wearing the same 3mm wetsuit with 3mm hooded vest. That's four 2 lb weights for a total of 8 lbs. The knife is vintage '70s ScubaPro... It's dull and heavy but really cool looking! I made the belt from cotton webbing with a vintage quick release buckle I got from VDH. I added some adjustability with a modern plastic slide buckle.

The end of the belt with the D for the bail quick release should not be riveted on permanently. When properly threaded with the webbing it is the adjustment.

Thanks Tom,

I don't know why I didn't figure that out originally. I did it correctly for the weight belt I used in Sea Hunt Forever.

My favorite weight belt lately is the vintage black nylon one pictured (with yellow center stripe) only I use it with one of Bryan's XS buckles. I have a standard set-up with four 2 lb weights with one of the front ones configured with a D-Ring keeper. This lets me clip one or two clip weights to the D-Ring if I'm diving shallow water and drop the clip weights off or clip them to my float if I'm diving deeper.

Also, and this is anecdotal, but I have had 1 rubber weight belt rip on me, and I have seen another diver rip one. Make sure you inspect it often if you ocean dive. I've missed two dives on a boat charter and I know 1 other person who has as well. You may have to adjust a nylon weight belt at depth, but they never rip. Like most things in life, there are engineering tradeoffs. I will admit that a rubber weight belt is far more comfortable.

slonda828 wrote:Also, and this is anecdotal, but I have had 1 rubber weight belt rip on me, and I have seen another diver rip one. Make sure you inspect it often if you ocean dive. I've missed two dives on a boat charter and I know 1 other person who has as well. You may have to adjust a nylon weight belt at depth, but they never rip. Like most things in life, there are engineering tradeoffs. I will admit that a rubber weight belt is far more comfortable.

Very true as we all have had broken fin straps mess up a dive day. I try to ALWAYS rinse the rubber in fresh waterand especially keep that stuff out of direct sunlight.

SurfLung wrote:- I've been test diving a couple of twin tanks set ups to get the right buoyancy. And, it being that Vintage Divers don't rely on a BC, it occurs to me that a divers weight belt becomes a very well thought out and personal piece of equipment.

- The weight belt on top is what I use with my Sportways Twin 42 tanks when wearing a 3mm wetsuit with 3mm hooded vest. Those are just two 1 lb weights for a total of 2 lbs. Why not a single 2 lb weight? It's for looks, man! Also even distribution. The knife is modern but sharp and handy. The belt and buckle are vintage USD and Dacor.
- The weight belt on the bottom is what I use with my USD Twin 38 tanks when wearing the same 3mm wetsuit with 3mm hooded vest. That's four 2 lb weights for a total of 8 lbs. The knife is vintage '70s ScubaPro... It's dull and heavy but really cool looking! I made the belt from cotton webbing with a vintage quick release buckle I got from VDH. I added some adjustability with a modern plastic slide buckle.

That top belt appears to have a Kershaw fixed blade Skyline? I EDC either the fixed or the flip version.

Buck has the Frontiersman back in their lineup which was also sold as the Nemo but with a synthetic sheath. Now that is a knife!

Aqua Craft with Healthways weights and old Nemrod stuff from my Nemrod era:



Old Nemrod black cotton webbing and QR buckle with old USD stuff, my USD era:



My Tekna era depth compensating buckle:



Unrelated but the Scupper undergoing another refit for one more adventure, there are some old well heads off South Padre, which is why I am in the Nemrod Secret Laboratory digging through junk and hammering on the old Scupper:




Nem