Chest Mounted Double hose

[YankDownUnder]

In 1952, Australia was a long way from the new scuba diving scene. La Spirotechnique licensed Siebe Gorman to make scuba regulators in the Commonwealth countries. However, Siebe Gorman was swamped with orders from the Royal Navy and civilian buyers in England. The Aussies were left to innovate. In Melbourne, the answer was the first single hose regulator, the Porpoise. In Sydney, diving club members made a copy of a CG45. They found their copy was very hard to breathe with. So the answer was to wear the regulator on the diver's chest. Cousteau began to have problems breathing underwater in later years. This was because he had been in an accident. Part of his therapy was swimming, and that led to his diving adventures. He also made a regulator like the Lawson. Cousteau made a copy of a copy.

While there may be as many a 70 Porpoise single hose regulators, the Historical Diving Society Aus-Pac has identified only one working Lawson Lung. The owner also had the left over parts from the original production. Tony Gregory and I serviced the existing regulator. Tony has now set about using the remaining parts to make three more. After that there will be no more, as there are no more original parts

On New Year's Day 2015 in Melbourne the first of the newly completed Lawson Lungs was put to the test. In this video you will see a Kraken and some other double hose regulator divers too. I hope you enjoy this short video of a Lawson Lung in service.

https://vimeo.com/115740898
[video]https://vimeo.com/115740898[/video]

[ScubaLawyer]

Very interesting, very cool video! I am always amazed when parts can be found to bring old dive gear back to working life. Diving the south coast of Australia and islands in the Bass Strait is on my to-do list. Oh well, one of these days!

[swimjim]

Thanks for posting the video. It appears a good time was had by all.

[gj1963]

Neat! Very interesting to see. Thanks for sharing.

[Bryan]

Great video Steve! I'll ask Ron to copy it to the front page of the site.

[uwstlth]

I think Bryan has a part in the online store to convert your DA, RAM, PRAM Etc to be used this way. I have often thought about getting that nut and running a hose from a first stage attached to a back mounted tank to the hooka port. Bryan et al; any idea of the difference of WOB on this configuration? Lewis?

[Bryan]

Luis has done some work with chest mounting me not so much so I'll let him comment. Something that many don't recognize is that the Cousteau divers when using the uber cool housings actually have their Mistral chest mounted.....Ryan Spence is the expert on this so hopefully he reads and replies as well as Luis.

Ryans site CLICK HERE

Flashback scuba.jpg

[swimjim]

[luis]

Nice video.

I think Bryan has a part in the online store to convert your DA, RAM, PRAM Etc to be used this way. I have often thought about getting that nut and running a hose from a first stage attached to a back mounted tank to the hooka port. Bryan et al; any idea of the difference of WOB on this configuration? Lewis?

If you ever notice how a DH becomes a positive pressure breather when you get on your back, that is basically what chest mounted does to a DH. It is still a demand valve, it is just biased to work in a positive pressure mode.

You actually have to hold your mouthpiece with your teeth. It would work with a full-face-mask if you had to dive in contaminated water.

One big disadvantage of chest mounted (as it can be seen in the video) is that now you can end up with a lot of bubbles in your face.

If you do a search for chest mounted you will find a number of related threads.
Here are a couple of links.
From 2009:
http://www.vintagedoublehose.com/forum/ ... hest+mount

From 2012:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6513&p=56100#p56100

[Sea Explorer]

Great video. I have done a bunch of research on chest mounted regulators. The Lawson Lung is the earliest I have found . There was a D.I.Y. article "Making an Aqualung" by E.T. Fearon published in Practical Mechanics January 1955. If you google it you will find the article. I am currently writing an article on the Cousteau chest mounted regulators. New research has found that Cousteau first used a chest mounted reg in 1958. They then put one in the Undersea World housings as Bryan mentioned (I have new info on that as well but you will have to wait for the article) and Cousteau could be seen diving one in the 90's just before he hung up his fins. There were four unique chest mounted regulator combinations used by Cousteau.

There are some great photos of the Lawson Lung parts mentioned in the original post here:

http://www.divescrap.com/DiveScrap_INDE ... ung.html#1

-Ryan

[Sea Explorer]

I forgot to mention the chest mounted Poumondeau regulators 1955-56.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=5238&start=0

-Ryan

[YankDownUnder]

Noel Monkman, an underwater photographer used the Lawson Lung in the 1954 to film the movie King of the Coral Sea. Bud Tingman, "Chips" Rafferty and Rod Taylor were all seen on camera diving with the Lawson Lung.

There were two versions. One had a demand valve on the diver's chest with a separate first stage on the tank manifold. They were made in batches and parts from one batch do not fit those from the other. That has been part of the challenge when restoring the originals.

King of the Coral Sea can be found on the internet. Here in Australia, Australian Film Archives have a frame counter version available, but it can be purchased overseas.