Mon Aug 21, 2017 10:31 am
- Well, we tried it out in the lake on Saturday. It probably looked pretty funny. We were either face forward or face down so the exhaust valve probably never got above the reg. Anyway we did not have free flow. However, when we exhaled it usually would go out the top of the mask rather than down to the exhaust port. Which makes sense... Easier to exhaust up to lower pressure than down to higher pressure. We could not get the top of the mask tight enough to stop this. It would exhale out the exhaust valve if we held the op of the mask with our hands.
- The face plate is curved and underwater it became a big fisheye lens. Objects 2 feet away looked like 6 feet away.
- Water could get into the reg very easily as there were no one way valves in the hose.
- Conclusion, like any fireman's SCBA, it can be used underwater in a pinch but its definitely not made for it.
- Caution: When testing equipment in lakes, wear a wetsuit to protect you from sunfish that think they are piranhas. Those little suckers drew blood on me. One bit me in the nipple and another bit me twice in the same spot behind my knee. That's when I whipped out my trusty dive knife...
I contacted Enrique Dauner on Facebook and he said converting this fireman's Snark III Silver to a double hose Scuba regulator is easy. You just need to replace the flat front can with a Scuba exhaust can and add a set of diving double hoses. An extra Snark III can may be hard to find. But I'm wondering if (since Mistral diaphragms fit Snark III)... I'm wondering if a Mistral front can with duckbill would work?
SurfLung
The Freedom and Simplicity of Vintage Equipment and
Vintage Diving Technique are Why I Got Back Into Diving.