New Life for Voit Valves

[Greg Barlow]

For those of you who own Voit/Swimaster tank valves that were produced from the late 60s to the early 80's, you know how the reserve poppet seat material deteriorates over the passage of time. I personally own several of the J-valves that have been rebuilt, and I have yet to find one that has had the seat material fully intact. A few years back, Herman created some replacement seats for me as an experiment. These work perfectly, but the time and machining needed to produce each unit is totally cost prohibitive. Until now, I was forced to reinstall the reserve mechanism minus the seating material. In effect, I had a K-valve, with the external appearance of a J-valve.

The valve body for the J-valve and K-valve is identical. The only difference being the blanking plug that was installed where the reserve mechanism would normally go. This was also the method used on the Trieste and Trieste II DH models.

Now, to the good news.... After more than two years of prodding, Rob agreed to have new blanking plugs produced. The quality is excellent, and I have already converted one of my Trieste regs, along with a J-valve. This is also a safety factor, as I don't need to guess if a particular J-vave has one of Herman's reproduction seats, or if the reserve mechanism is merely cosmetic. Finding yourself low on air during a dive, and pulling the reserve only to find that the tank is truly empty is not a warm and fuzzy feeling.

If you are interested, reach out to Rob, or visit his website. He also has the nylon gaskets that are needed to seal the plug.

[Bronze06]

That is Rob at The Scuba Museum?