Diver Daves' Shop

The Dive-Shop of Horrors: Where Rebreathers Fear to Tread.

With apologies to Will Smithers, for blatantly ripping off the nickname 'The Shop of Horrors' from his electronics lab. Hey, I copy the best from the best! Will is to rebreather electronics as I am to their mechanics. That is to say, an ever-curious enthusiast with a zest for making stuff that nobody else has ever dreamed of. The shop is really two different places: The first is the shop-proper, and the second is the hangar at the airport. Turns out that I've kicked out the Yak-50 for the winter to work on dive-gear. Scroll on down to look-see.

So, here it is: I hope you have a sense of humor!

Welcome to "The Surgery"

Here is the basic shop, which is really just the corner that my wife makes me play in. On the bench is a French DC-55 rebreather, a real antique, as well as a half-disassembled IDA-64. Just another typical day in paradise!

The "Instrument of Creation" is my nearly antique 9" South Bend toolroom lathe. It's an oldie but goodie, and is capable of making just about everything I need in the way of diving and airplane parts. Take care of good machinery and it'll take care of you!

The 'Torture Chamber" is an integral part of the Shop of Horrors. A pressure test-vessel is a great way to test rebreather parts, as you can simulate any PP02 desired for electronics calibration with air pressurized in the 'pot'. Filled with water, it makes a great way to test components for watertight integrity. I hope Captain Al does not visit here, as I stole this pot from the Dive Shop a few years ago, and he's probably still looking for it. Really observant people will notice the Orca Edge hanging up on the wall. It's S/N 37, and I was the first owner. That's been a while. It still works, too!

The "Dusty" side of the shop has your basic selection of bandsaws, a small drill-press, and a belt-sander. I like to keep the nice clean lathe and metal stuff away from the dusty stuff, so this is across on the other side. The tools are mid-sized, but good quality. I don't work on anything much larger than a first-stage regulator, and thus anything larger would be wasted. I do have space for a milling machine, though, and am presently looking for a nice one.

Meanwhile back at the Airport:

Just a corner of the hangar. The airport conveyance consists of a Russian motorcycle with a sidecar, good for driving on muddy fields and hauling all sorts of stuff back and forth to the flight-line. If you look carefully, you can find a Martin Baker ejection seat, (Yes it's real), which is for the F-104 that I'm overhauling. The odd diving helmet or two rounds out this corner. Yes, the tire is flat. Hey, it's Winter here now! You think I'm crazy? Only Russians ride these in the snow.

No, indeed: THIS is what Russians ride in the snow. Photo taken last summer, this is my daily drive-about: a 1952 Russian GAZ-69 that I dragged back from Moscow two years ago. It's generally parked in the corner of the shop when it's not taking up too much room. It does have a top (canvas) and a heater (Trust Me: If you hold your hand right -there- you can 'almost' feel that it's a few degrees warmer than outside, really!). Hey, what do you want for $600 plus shipping? Heat? It is air-conditioned though. Truly. Just look at the opening windshield. Maximum speed is about 40 miles per hour, but the good news is that it reliably gets just about 9 miles per gallon.

Grey boxes of what? Rebreathers you say? Sorry. Those are full of MiG-17 parts, all wrapped in paper and string, and then packed in wooden boxes. The Russians may not "Do it Right" but they sure "Do it Correctly". (That's a joke if you are a technical diver. If you don't get it, that's probably all for the better. Don't sweat it! Just do things correctly and you'll do fine).

Behind the GAZ is a 1939 BMW R-35 motorcycle, another souvenir of Moscow. Hey, some people bring back those little nesting wooden dolls. I brought back airplanes, rebreathers, trucks, and old motorcycles. To each his own.

More rigs? Err..... Yup. Those Yellow Monsters are BIG constant mass flow rigs known as the IDA-72. These are really a blatant rip-off of the Draeger FGG-III, but have a number of unique features. I was lucky enough to find a few of these rare rigs, and have been playing with one for a while. They have lots of potential, and some neat features like a belt-block that selects a purge mode, and also selects an open-circuit bailout mode by actually moving a pneumatic shuttle-valve to split the loop in the middle, making it an open-circuit device. Pretty clever. Check them out!

And in this corner.... is another eclectic item, a hand-pump for deep-sea diving. This is a new one, having never been put in service. It's being held for our next antique dive-day rally, part of our Historical Diving Society USA activities. We have a great time once or twice a year getting together a group of enthusiasts to set up and dive our antique deep-sea equipment. I generally bring a Navy Mark-V rig, a Russian Deep-Sea rig, and also try to bring a few antique rebreathers. So far the Mark-15 doesn't count, but maybe in a few years. We'll see.

Here's the famous "Nuclear Powered Dive Scooter", which is really a Protei 5 Diver Propulsion Vehicle. You lay down on the thing, with the arm shown at the left in your crotch, and the two hinged shoulder-hooks sort of clip you to the top. The scooter is titanium, and is very rugged. Two tubes welded side-by-side hold silver-zinc batteries of enormous capacity. This baby was designed to be held on a bracket on the exterior of a Nuclear Sub for up to 120 days, for use by Spetznaz teams doing lock-out missions. It's fast, and has a very long range. That's the wooden transit chest that it's sitting on. This is the only one in the West.

That's all of it! Well, really that's -not- all of it, but it's all I have photos of. We have a lot of fun here, and any are welcome to come and enjoy the wonders of ripping apart greasy boxes of equipment from far away and tearing into it like big kids at Christmas. You never know what you'll find laid on the slab in the Dive-Shop of Horrors!

Thanks for visiting!

Dave Sutton

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	Welcome to "The Surgery" Here is the basic shop, which is really just the corner that my wife makes me play in. On the bench is a French DC-55 rebreather, a real antique, as well as a half-disassembled IDA-64. Just another typical day in paradise!
	The "Instrument of Creation" is my nearly antique 9" South Bend toolroom lathe. It's an oldie but goodie, and is capable of making just about everything I need in the way of diving and airplane parts. Take care of good machinery and it'll take care of you!
	The 'Torture Chamber" is an integral part of the Shop of Horrors. A pressure test-vessel is a great way to test rebreather parts, as you can simulate any PP02 desired for electronics calibration with air pressurized in the 'pot'. Filled with water, it makes a great way to test components for watertight integrity. I hope Captain Al does not visit here, as I stole this pot from the Dive Shop a few years ago, and he's probably still looking for it. Really observant people will notice the Orca Edge hanging up on the wall. It's S/N 37, and I was the first owner. That's been a while. It still works, too!
	The "Dusty" side of the shop has your basic selection of bandsaws, a small drill-press, and a belt-sander. I like to keep the nice clean lathe and metal stuff away from the dusty stuff, so this is across on the other side. The tools are mid-sized, but good quality. I don't work on anything much larger than a first-stage regulator, and thus anything larger would be wasted. I do have space for a milling machine, though, and am presently looking for a nice one.
	Meanwhile back at the Airport: Just a corner of the hangar. The airport conveyance consists of a Russian motorcycle with a sidecar, good for driving on muddy fields and hauling all sorts of stuff back and forth to the flight-line. If you look carefully, you can find a Martin Baker ejection seat, (Yes it's real), which is for the F-104 that I'm overhauling. The odd diving helmet or two rounds out this corner. Yes, the tire is flat. Hey, it's Winter here now! You think I'm crazy? Only Russians ride these in the snow.
	No, indeed: THIS is what Russians ride in the snow. Photo taken last summer, this is my daily drive-about: a 1952 Russian GAZ-69 that I dragged back from Moscow two years ago. It's generally parked in the corner of the shop when it's not taking up too much room. It does have a top (canvas) and a heater (Trust Me: If you hold your hand right -there- you can 'almost' feel that it's a few degrees warmer than outside, really!). Hey, what do you want for $600 plus shipping? Heat? It is air-conditioned though. Truly. Just look at the opening windshield. Maximum speed is about 40 miles per hour, but the good news is that it reliably gets just about 9 miles per gallon.
	Grey boxes of what? Rebreathers you say? Sorry. Those are full of MiG-17 parts, all wrapped in paper and string, and then packed in wooden boxes. The Russians may not "Do it Right" but they sure "Do it Correctly". (That's a joke if you are a technical diver. If you don't get it, that's probably all for the better. Don't sweat it! Just do things correctly and you'll do fine). Behind the GAZ is a 1939 BMW R-35 motorcycle, another souvenir of Moscow. Hey, some people bring back those little nesting wooden dolls. I brought back airplanes, rebreathers, trucks, and old motorcycles. To each his own.
	More rigs? Err..... Yup. Those Yellow Monsters are BIG constant mass flow rigs known as the IDA-72. These are really a blatant rip-off of the Draeger FGG-III, but have a number of unique features. I was lucky enough to find a few of these rare rigs, and have been playing with one for a while. They have lots of potential, and some neat features like a belt-block that selects a purge mode, and also selects an open-circuit bailout mode by actually moving a pneumatic shuttle-valve to split the loop in the middle, making it an open-circuit device. Pretty clever. Check them out!
	And in this corner.... is another eclectic item, a hand-pump for deep-sea diving. This is a new one, having never been put in service. It's being held for our next antique dive-day rally, part of our Historical Diving Society USA activities. We have a great time once or twice a year getting together a group of enthusiasts to set up and dive our antique deep-sea equipment. I generally bring a Navy Mark-V rig, a Russian Deep-Sea rig, and also try to bring a few antique rebreathers. So far the Mark-15 doesn't count, but maybe in a few years. We'll see.
	Here's the famous "Nuclear Powered Dive Scooter", which is really a Protei 5 Diver Propulsion Vehicle. You lay down on the thing, with the arm shown at the left in your crotch, and the two hinged shoulder-hooks sort of clip you to the top. The scooter is titanium, and is very rugged. Two tubes welded side-by-side hold silver-zinc batteries of enormous capacity. This baby was designed to be held on a bracket on the exterior of a Nuclear Sub for up to 120 days, for use by Spetznaz teams doing lock-out missions. It's fast, and has a very long range. That's the wooden transit chest that it's sitting on. This is the only one in the West.