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Compressor conversations 28 May 2008

Posted in Diving.

The RVSAC compressor fires up

If an ex Diving Officer of your dive club calls you and says he has a compressor for sale, be careful what you say. It can end up with hours of side splitting fun and of course a lot of hard work... George Wilcox was the Diving Officer of Ribble Valley Sub Aqua Club (RVSAC) years before I joined. In October 2007, he called and said 'Fancy this compressor, its only £150'. In the words of Jarvis Cocker I said 'I'll see what I can do'.

I called George and arranged to go down and view the beastie. He described it as an ex Royal Navy 'Dunlop' unit which he had owned and used extensively for years. George had air quality checks and although not doubled filtered, it had plenty of spares, but no manual. He also dropped in the conversation that it was 'a little heavy' but could be lifted by a couple of 'big blokes'. I took down the mighty O-Ring king with my LandRover Defender expecting to whip in the back once the deal was done.

We arrived and George took us through his house to the garage around the back. The unit was covered by a typical khaki canvas which he carefully lifted off to reveal the most beautiful piece of kit I had seen in a number of years. The gauges were big and all brass, the knurled knobs were real bakelite and brass. Perfect.

It was big though and the huge single cylinder diesel engine looked very heavy; we became more suspicious when I saw lifting eyes at each corner of the substantial steel frame. I am not a muscle man by any means but I tried to lift one corner and it felt like it was bolted to the floor... So much for the back of the LandRover; more assistance required. I called some of the engineer types from the branch and arranged to come down again.

After convening in the pub for moral support, we all arrived in expectation of something wonderful. We all stood around the compressor as George cranked the handle. It fired up in a cloud of black and purple smoke which did worry me somewhat as the intake is around 300mm from the exhaust. When I quizzed George about this he said. 'No problem, just make sure the exhaust is downwind' - simple. SIMPLE, long air intake hose required...

Of course the 'Purple Haze' that was produced resulted in the bloody thing being called 'Hendrix'. The next impressive point was the deafening racket; the single cylinder is like the best classic motorcycle you have ever heard...

The picture above shows the scene. From left to right. My son Joe is laughing; Helen is terrified; George is resolute and Bruce is standing in wonder!!! For more photos go to my Flickr set.

As the club is doing more and more adventurous diving in remote locations we couldn't resist buying it. Pete had some of his hairy assed engineers come down, pick it up (we estimate it weighs about 250Kg) and deliver it Ed's garage where it still resides ready for insertion in the huge box trailer called of course, 'the Experience'.

So far the £150 compressor has cost us about £1500. As is common with most RVSAC projects it has gone totally out of control, with Bruce & Pete developing a mobile mixed gas blending station (yes that's nitrox and trimix folks) in the trailer. But more of this in the next posting on this subject...

I am really looking forward to arriving in a sleepy Scottish village and firing it up; it won't be sleepy for long...

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