crimediver
Master Diver
Posts: 412
Joined: Tue Jul 12, 2005 7:38 am
Location: Richmond, Va

Help identifying this regulator.

Fri Jan 22, 2016 12:16 am

I know pictures are worth a thousand words. However I was unable to resize the pics I took of the regulator and the file was too large to allow me to post it. Maybe someone can help me out on how to do this. Anyways I hope I can explain what I have and the brain trust can help me put a name to a regulator I just got.

I saw a grainy picture on Craigslist of a USD double hose regulator that was for sale. The picture only showed one side of the reg. The side where the label should be was not shown. But I could tell that it had a had a short yoke with the older style unmarked yoke screw and a snubbed off hookah port. The seller lived in another state and when I talked to the seller about buying it he refused to mail it and insisted on a local pick up. A road trip was out of the question and I could not budge the seller to ship it despite my best effort.

The seller told me there was no label on it. I figure it had been removed or had gotten knocked off at some point. Of course, like all old regulators it supposedly came from the estate of a navy diver. But the seller told me that his friends mother had some of her deceased husband's dive gear and he though the stuff was cool. She let him take a Mk V helmet and a double hose reg. He said he made a nice stand for the helmet and put a light inside it. After keeping it for some years she came by one day and asked for the helmet back as she just learned it was valuable. She let him keep the Aqualung. I began to think maybe it had belonged to a navy diver after all.

I asked what the label said and he told me there was no label on it. I asked him to remove the dust cap and tell me what color the sintered filter was. He told me it looked like brass as did the circlip. I thought that it might possibly be a non-mag although the picture of the reg made it look chrome plated. I did not ask him to look for low MU proof marks as I did not wish to educate him. After pleading my case and asking it to be shipped he politely told me no way.

A few weeks passed and I saw it was still for sale and this time the ad stated "Shipping extra." He had no luck selling the reg locally and he agreed to ship it to me. The next week as I was leaving the house on a road trip that would keep me away from home for a while I saw the package on my porch. I tossed it in my vehicle and decided to wait until I got to the hotel that night before opening it. It was kind of like being a kid on Christmas eve wondering what I might have.

As I unwrapped it, the first thing I saw was the early style curved Aqualung mouth piece. The hoses were in decent shape. The screen and circlip were gold plated and looked just like my other non-mag screens, but I saw no low mag proof mark and it made me wonder if I had gotten a pieced together Frankenstein regulator.

Both cans were shiny chrome in very nice shape with almost no scratches and I was surprised the see that it had the removable exhaust horn. I had not seen that in the picture. So I know it is an older reg.

But here is what has me befuddled. The can where the label should be is perfectly flat, has no rectangular recess where a label would sit, and there are no slits in the cover where label tabs would be inserted. There are no holes where a label would be riveted either. It looks like it never had a label on it. The surface of the can is completely flat all the way across the face. What regulator was made with the removable exhaust horn that had no provisions to attach a label?

I am not an expert on all the lines of US Diver regulators but looking through the various websites on the internet showing pictures of various regulators I have not spotted a similar looking reg. Did they ever make a regulator that was sold without any label tag on it ?

The only thing that makes sense to me is that it once had a metal foil sticker that was applied but then came off. I know the round label RAM can is flat all the across the can where they had a metal foil sticker. I have even seen a round RAM label on an earlier can that had a rectangular recess on it. I reckon that came from USD habit of using up all the parts from earlier regs. But this one is a very early regulator based on the removable exhaust horn, yoke screw and mouthpiece and I don't believe a metal foil sticker would have been used on a regulator from that time period. And this is in no way a RAM.

Anyhow this one has me puzzled right now. It may be a common regulator and I just never saw one before. All of you guys probably have one exactly like it in your dive locker but I am unfamiliar with this one. Hopefully someone can educate me on it. I am also scratching my head about the gold plated parts unless it was overhauled by the navy and low mag parts were used. I know some non-mags never got stamped with the proof marks because they failed testing. Not sure what I have but the label issue is the thing that I am scratching my head about.

Any thoughts on this would be appreciated,

I won't be able to open it up until I get it home to work on it as it has the C-clips on it. Sorry that I cannot post pics yet but I will try again later if I can get them resized.

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Bryan
Plank Owner
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Joined: Fri Jun 24, 2005 11:40 am
First Name: Bryan
Location: Wesley Chapel Florida
Contact: Website

Re: Help identifying this regulator.

Fri Jan 22, 2016 12:39 am

Send me the pictures and I can post them. I thought the forum automatically resized pictures based on the parameters it has?
I'll ask Ron about that part.

Sent from my SM-T810 using Tapatalk
Doing it right should include some common sense, not just blindly following specs and instructions. .Gary D, AWAP on SB

crimediver
Master Diver
Posts: 412
Joined: Tue Jul 12, 2005 7:38 am
Location: Richmond, Va

Re: Help identifying this regulator.

Fri Jan 22, 2016 1:54 am

Thanks Bryan. I sent them to your e-mail. FYI, the properties of the pictures on my end showed the size to be between 1.5MB to 2 MB. I have a somewhat vintage laptop I was working with and my software is probably a bit vintage as well but I had no provision to re-size on my end. I guess I could have taken some pics on my phone as I know I can reduce the size with that but never thought about it until now.

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Bryan
Plank Owner
Posts: 5279
Joined: Fri Jun 24, 2005 11:40 am
First Name: Bryan
Location: Wesley Chapel Florida
Contact: Website

Re: Help identifying this regulator.

Fri Jan 22, 2016 9:26 am

Resized images
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Doing it right should include some common sense, not just blindly following specs and instructions. .Gary D, AWAP on SB

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captain
Plank Owner
Posts: 1440
Joined: Mon Jul 04, 2005 11:32 am
Location: LaPlace, LA

Re: Help identifying this regulator.

Fri Jan 22, 2016 12:11 pm

Have you looked inside to see exactly what regulator it is DAAM or DA Navy. I have something similar. It is a DA Navy with a snubbed hookah port, no label ( but a place for it) with satin finish cans. It too was stated to be ex-Navy. I think yours was put together from parts the Navy unit it was used by had on hand. Cans were possibly cannibalized from an earlier regulator because the originals got damaged. Because of OPSEC "sterile" (no identifying information) equipment is sometimes used for clandestine operations.
Captain

crimediver
Master Diver
Posts: 412
Joined: Tue Jul 12, 2005 7:38 am
Location: Richmond, Va

Re: Help identifying this regulator.

Fri Jan 22, 2016 12:40 pm

It will be next week before I can get the clips off as I am on the road. I thought it might be a DA Navy. I had also thought about this one being a sterile reg but I figured such a reg ought to be a subdued color, not shiny chrome. But that does make sense.

A high school friend of mine had a father who flew for Air America in the 60's. He showed me a Colt 1911 that was his dad's gun that he carried. There were absolutely no markings or proof marks on it anywhere. It was a CIA sterile weapon.

I picked up 4 or 5 DH regulators in Norfolk a few years ago. They had a military connection. One was a DA Aquamaster with no label and was painted black but it was not a non-mag. It had a snubbed hookah port as well. There was a couple of plastic stick on labels made with the old squeeze handled label makers. It had the owners name on it and also said."Rosey Roads-EOD". Obviously a navy used reg from Roosevelt Roads Puerto Rico. I believe the reg label was removed or never put on it in the first place.

I find the military regs pretty interesting and this latest one has aroused my curiosity, I will post more pics once I crack it open.

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Bronze06
Master Diver
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Joined: Tue Jul 01, 2014 5:33 am
First Name: Russell
Location: Tabuk, Saudi Arabia

Re: Help identifying this regulator.

Fri Feb 05, 2016 4:01 am

:?: I am with the Captain on this one. It appears to be a sterile regulator composed of multiple components spanning a ten year period. You are correct about the mouthpiece. The regulator body is a late 50s type as the Captain inferred, either a DA Navy or an early DAAM. The Broxton bright chrome front can with a flattened surface is the give away that it was a DOD/DON/DOA military contract purchase. This reg was probably a training reg. The hard bright chrome believe it or not would have lent itself to being painted or masked for a given location/lighting condition and after operations could easily be removed by tearing off the masking tape or material or if painted, using various paint removers or even turpentine with out damaging the can. When you open it check to see it there is any strange looking paint residue that might have gotten in the cracks between both can housings. This might have been a presentation reg. given to the former owner when he left the service as a memento.
"Where'd ya get that ol' thang, don't cha' know them thare things ill kill ya!"

Live From the Red Sea,

Russ

Myxicola
Diver
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Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2016 9:27 pm
First Name: Douglas
Location: Palo Alto CA

Re: Help identifying this regulator.

Sun Apr 03, 2016 1:30 am

Maybe it was used up the Mekong River back in the early 1960's, I had an old friend who would drop off and pick up Navy SEAL from his Coast Guard ship. He told me he was amazed at those guys, carrying huge combat loads, working to total exhaustion.

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