Vintage Double Hose

Hey all,

So I acquired a Northhill Air Lung today from my local dive shops garbage box. Can anyone give me some information on it? Is it even possible to restore one of these or is it a wall hanger?

Can it be used with replacement silicone hoses? or does it need it's special DSV to work?

Any idea if it's worth selling?

There are quite a few posts and a lot of information on them in the forum. Search feature should be able to help.

Hey Bryan, I'll give you $50 if you will tell Goodlifedivers it's no good and that he should send it to me for proper disposal to prevent someone from getting hurt.

Actually, I tried doing a forum search and Northhill Air lung only came up with two results that didn't provide much information.

I put Northill in the search box and got two pages of results.

antique diver wrote:Hey Bryan, I'll give you $50 if you will tell Goodlifedivers it's no good and that he should send it to me for proper disposal to prevent someone from getting hurt.

I'll see what I can do. ..

Well at least I know it's worth at $50 to someone.

Bryan wrote:I put Northill in the search box and got two pages of results.

It's caused I spelled it northhill

To repeat what I said on SB, check Roberts' Book, Basic Scuba.

As for fishing for price, the easiest way, outside of asking on the forums, is to do an eBay search and see what they sold for.

I just listed this reg on the marketplace. I think it may be above my ability to restore it and I think I would rather have something I can eventually dive.

So, If anyone is interested in trading or sending an offer for this reg, have at it.

They tend to go for $250 and up in fair to excellent condition from what I've seen.

Northill was a subsidiary of Garrett which is still around. I would bet that you see Northill regs come into existence after the Normalair acquisition. I believe their reg bodies were actually made of Bronze a Normalair practice.

John Clifford "Cliff" Garrett founded a company in Los Angeles in 1936 which came to be known as Garrett AiResearch or simply AiResearch.[1] Already operating his Garrett Supply and Airsupply businesses, in 1939 Cliff Garrett established a small research laboratory to conduct "air research" on the development of pressurized flight for passenger aircraft.[2] "[AiResearch's] first 'lab' was a small store building on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles".[3]

In 1939 Garrett incorporated the "Garrett Corporation" and the three operating companies became divisions: Airsupply Division, Garrett Supply Division, and AiResearch Manufacturing Division. Needing additional space, they built their own manufacturing facility in Glendale, California, and thereby established the name AiResearch Manufacturing Company.

Normalair acquisition

The company won a Queens Award to Industry for Export in 1966 and the Garrett Corporation took a 48% shareholding in the company, which was subsequently renamed Normalair-Garrett Limited (NGL). At this time the company had more than 1,300 employees.

I stand corrected. The Northill was available in at least 1956, and definitely the plant was located very near Garrett's main production areas in LA. I looked in the "Bullpen" on Bryans manuals and the one he has is dated 1956. It's strange that Northill isn't mentioned AT ALL in Garrett's online corporate history, though it was definitely a subsidiary of Garrett. It would be a rubber cutting nightmare to rebuild with regards to the main diaphragm, but you don't need a DSV to operate it.

The Northill Air Lung was the featured regulator in the 1956 science fiction film, The Creature Walks Among Us. It is the last in the 'Creature' trilogy available on DVD. The trilogy is fun to watch and features some great double hose diving. The first one, Creature from the Black Lagoon shows the 'Broxton' green label and there is a variety of gear in the second movie, including a commercial diving helmet and Scott full face mask regulator.

So someone looked up the serial number for me giving me a date of 1955.

There is a really nice article on the Northill written by Ed LaRochelle. It includes photos I had never seen before.

The Northill Air-Lung Regulator. LaRochelle, Ed // Journal of Diving History;2014 3rd Quarter, Vol. 22 Issue 80, p23