The Ultimate Solution...
- My original Trieste had one of the thin silicone duckbills in it and it was actually folded in half... Which may or may not have given some resistance to exhaling. I replaced this with the new molded silicone duckbill from The Scuba Museum.
- Then, I finally noticed that the new silicone diaphragm is a little smaller in diameter so that the ridge on it's circumference doesn't grab the groove on the can. So I went back to the original handmade diaphragm and I could see the folded under part was correctable by trimming off excess silicone sealant. I was able to secure it full width and all the way around the circumference to the top can with Loctite Ultra Gel... It's a super glue that works with rubber. I had to do a little at a time but got the whole thing totally secured so it wasn't going anywhere.
This is the original Bill Tucker ultra sensitive hand made diaphragm. You can see the new duckbill thru the diaphragm.
- With the diaphragm secure, it was easy to line up the top and bottom cans and fit the band clamp nice and tight.
- I put my thumb over the nozzle and sucked like heck on the inhale horn. It sucked down the diaphragm hard and held tightly without slipping, leaking, or sucking loose. Put the hoses on her and tried to hard suck it some more to see if I could get the diaphragm to suck loose or even leak. Nothing. We took it to the pool yesterday and dove it for about an hour. Works great. So my Trieste is restored to original cans and working great.
But the story doesn't end here... Phil has made me up a Titan conversion to put in my blue plastic cans. I'm looking forward to putting that together and I'll post the story here for those who might be interested