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I just changed the bladder in my Dive Rite Wings. I had finnal broken it
after six years (the tube came unglued from the bladder). I replaced it with a
six-year old bladder that I held as a spare, and it blew on the first dive. I
took me until the end of the line in Wakulla to figure out why I had to keep
adding gas. I kept hitting the inflator and insticntively trying to clear my
ears, figuring that I must be getting deeper, but when I would glance at my
bottom timer, it was always the usual 285. I finally looked at my pressure
guage, saw I had lost 400 psi, and just used the drysuit from then on for
buoyancy - not a problem. I really did not need the wings at all, but have a
thing about being neutral at all times.
I had bought two more bladders recently ( a month ago), and installed one of
them. It is put together differently than the ones from six years ago, and will
likely not come apart. I would suggest to Dive Rite and other manufacturers
that
when they spot a problem, the tell us. I can figure these things out by myself,
and they will not kill me, and I do not ever expect a manufacturer of dive
gear
to give me my money back, or anything like that, just let me know what to look
out for, but look what happened with the bondage wings on the guy in the
quarry.
For the Dive Rite version, they have instructions, according to Mark Lenard, a
good idea.
While I redid them, I decided to test the buoyancy of them in the pool. As
it turns out, the Dive Rite original wings will suspend 48 pounds perfectly.
This is amazing given the small size of the wings, and the fact that they do
this without stretching the inner bladder - a real good idea. Thre is no way
you
could ever need 48 pounds of lift, unless you are using the wrong gear.
These wings will wrap around my tanks when not fully
inflated, and have very little drag. In fact, I will out-run severely anyone
wearing any kind of bondage wings with my Dive Rite "originals". Sea Tec would
be awesome if the dumb bastards put the inflator in the right place. On mine I
had to move it, and they looked mutillated, and I have to look good, so I only
use them in the ocean , where only the fish will see.
Here is what I did to these Dive Rite wings to make them work for six
years. I took a truck inner tube, and cut it out to the shape of the wings, and
laid it over both sides of the sheath that covers the bladder, so that no part
of the bladder is exposed to anything but the rubber from the inner tube. I
took
the valves apart and removed any excess material and smoothed them to seat
perfectly. I cut the little plastic thing off of the rear dump, as stage
bottles
will dump your wings if you do not. I three-clamped the upper hose connection
and the lower one, but not until I had removerd the inflator, turned it so that
the intake button is facing to the right (so you can operate your inflator and
your drysuit with one hand), and added little bike tire inner tube sections
over
the corrugated hose to hold the inflator hose tight to it. You can use these
little sections to compress or bunch the hose near the top of the bc so that
the
inflator does not get accidentally pressed when you are clipping a stage to
your
upper d ring. If you get the non compressibel kind, which is too bad, cut it
shorter (that is what JJ dd to his).
George M. Irvine III
DIR WKPP
1400 SE 11 ST Ft Lauderdale, FL 33316
954-493-6655 FAX 6698
Email gmiiii@in*.co*
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