TDI O2 Equipment Service Technician Course Report

[warmwaterdiver]

again not quite a "trip report" but........

Having only met Neil Brock on a couple of occasions, I asked a couple of reliable friends about him & the course and he came well recommended.

Neil is an old school diver, diving from an early age, having been down the commercial diver route and with the help of his ever-helpful wife Maggie, runs Bristol Channel Diving Ltd, which is a real divers type shop & workshop not a glossy showroom. He is, what I would class as a “been there, seen it, done it, got the t-shirt” type of bloke, exactly the type of person you want to learn from. He knows what he’s talking about but doesn’t appear a know-it-all, confident but not cocky.

Anyway, there were a couple of reasons behind me wanting to do the course. Firstly I didn’t have the knowledge to look inside my regs with any confidence, secondly I didn’t know the cylinder cleaning process and thirdly I had a shit-load of stuff that needed servicing & didn’t really just want to keep on paying someone else to do it for me. So I thought it was about time to learn some more useful stuff.

Now to be honest, the course does cost £300, which isn’t cheap, nothing in diving life ever is! But (and it’s a big but) you do get to service a small number of your own reg’s & cylinders on the course. Neil includes 3 full sets of reg service kits in the course fee (this in itself adds up to nearly £100 for my Poseidon’s) as well as all the sundry items such as cleaning solutions, lots of cloth, use of specialist kit/tools, numerous O rings, misc items, TDI certification, etc.

The “official” course as I understand it is a one day course which is the basic cleaning course but Neil’s course is much more comprehensive 3 days. There were two of us on the course which was a surprise as I originally thought, as it was midweek, it would be just me, but it was good to share ideas with the other student (Craig). It was also good to see other makes of kit and mine were all very similar Poseidon’s. A quick look at Neil’s calendar showed it’s quite a popular course.

It was early on Tuesday morning that I found myself on the way down to Neil’s workshop.

Day one started with the theory and a look at various components of reg’s, from the very basic, upto the very complex. Also we learnt about the cleaning processes.

One thing which very quickly became apparent is that there isn’t one absolutely agreed way to do things. One manufacturer may suggest using a certain cleaning solution, another will say specifically not too!

Day one afternoon we went into the workshop and start work. Over the afternoon and indeed all the second day was regulator servicing and cleaning. Neil adapts his teaching upon the competency of the students. He uses the method; show you what to do, watch you do it, then problem solve. We had various breakages along the way, not surprising given some of the history of the kit we were servicing. Another good thing about Neils workshop, he has all the right equipment and (I reckon) 99% of parts on the shelf if something is damaged, broken or won’t come out in one piece. Now we can’t all afford to buy the true manufacturers servicing tools but Neil explained what you could and couldn’t get away with using/buying. Testing was completed by only doing one part at a time, for example, servicing the 1st stage, reassembling it, testing it with the 2nd stage, adjusting as necessary, then doing the same on the 2nd stage. That way if there was a problem we only had one bit to look at!

On timings, during the afternoon of day 1, a single 2nd stage took me 2 hours to strip, clean, reassemble and test, asking questions every two minutes it appeared. By the end of day two, I was happy to strip two 1st stages at the same time, clean, reassemble and test, all within 1 hour, a vast improvement not only on time but in confidence.

Day three dawned and first we covered the very basics of suits, standard power inflaters and autoairs. Moving on we looked at various pillar valves, old and new, staright and tapered.

Moving on, we then looked at a couple of scary cylinders Neil keeps as a warning that high pressure can cause problems if not correctly stored!

Then back down into the workshop for the cylinder and valve cleaning. Again it was a process of; I’ll explain, I’ll show, I’ll let you while I watch, I’ll watch you less and just ask any questions as you go along. Again we were working on our own kit but this is were Craig came in especially useful. I took all ali stages as test kit and to be honest, they were all clean and tidy but a couple of Craig’s club cylinders were steels and showed good examples of various light rust pattern, showing us the levels between when they would need a shotblast and when its staining rather than rusting. Cylinders & valves were then tested by filling with HP air.

A basic exam, then a good chat with Neil to ensure we knew the importance of what we now knew and how to use that knowledge. Also a quick safety briefing, basically don’t service stuff and the take it to the extremes.

We passed but I must admit, the qualification doesn’t mean a lot. I would more than happily have done the 3 day course just for the experience of it rather than the qualification, I hope you understand what I mean.

One thing, back to the cost of the course, Neil is not a 9 to 5 bloke, he puts the hours in. Both me and Craig took a fair amount of kit to service whilst on the course and Neil was OK with this. As an example, Neil’s official working hours are 09:30 to 17:30, but on Wednesday we started at 08:00 and worked through until 19:30. Again on Thursday we started at 08:00, so don’t take the course as a easy 3 dayer, it isn’t but it is most certainly very good experience.

Neil and Maggie can be contacted via Bristol Channel Diving Ltd or www.neilbrock.co.uk

Oh, and various YD’rs called in during the course. Obviously they have nothing better to do but they didn't dare bring any of their kit in with them

[neilh]

Nice write up Gary, thanks for that.

Definitely sounds like an interesting course given by a good instructor - which is always handy to know

[nickb]

Excellent write-up Gary.

I turned up yesterday lunch time anticipating watching a fiasco unfolding before me However, Neil had the pair of them on a tight leash and it all looked surprisingly under control, although the sight of Gary in greased-up latex gloves made my eyes water a little.

He vastly underestimates the amount of kit he took to service as I had to pop in again today to fetch two Ali 80s that he was forced to leave there as he lacked the room in his capacious motor to take back with him. I reckon the course paid for itself many times over.

I consider myself lucky to have Bristol Channel Diving virtually on my doorstep. It really is the best dive-shop I've ever experienced.

[warmwaterdiver]

Originally Posted by nickb

I turned up yesterday lunch time anticipating watching a fiasco unfolding before me However, Neil had the pair of them on a tight leash and it all looked surprisingly under control, although the sight of Gary in greased-up latex gloves made my eyes water a little.

I was O2 clean and ready for you

Originally Posted by nickb

He vastly underestimates the amount of kit he took to service as I had to pop in again today to fetch two Ali 80s that he was forced to leave there as he lacked the room in his capacious motor to take back with him. I reckon the course paid for itself many times over.

true but the amount of kit you can do on the course certainly depends on the speed you pick things up, Neil also said its better to do 3 correctly than try to do 6 and mess them up

I admit I did take half my cylinders and most of my regs

it also takes a surprising amount of time if you break things loose things and have to search Neils stock for replacement parts
we had much use out of the thread removal tools when certain hex key slots got rounded off

Originally Posted by nickb

I consider myself lucky to have Bristol Channel Diving virtually on my doorstep. It really is the best dive-shop I've ever experienced.

yeap, its a real diveshop

[colinicky]

Nice write up Gary . So now you have this piece of worthless paper will Neil supply you with service kits or any other dive supplier for that matter ? Having done the course would you personally think it worth you getting the kits, cleaning solution etc & doing the servicing yourself or is it more cost effective to still go to the shop ?
TIA

[warmwaterdiver]

it all depends where you are with your diving Colin

if you've got a couple of cylinders & reg sets then it may not pay to service your own gear, especially if you have no interest in that side of it, but obviously the more you have the more it would cost to get serviced and the more saving there is if you do your own

as I said before I did the course, I didn't do it just to save money but I wanted to know what the processes involved were and maybe one day it'll get me out of trouble if I have an equipment problem

it also depends if you trust your LDS, time turnaround for servicing kit, locality of your LDS, cost, etc

[colinicky]

Originally Posted by warmwaterdiver

it also depends if you trust your LDS, time turnaround for servicing kit, locality of your LDS, cost, etc

Yep that's my major issue, nearest LDS is 30 miles/1 hour each way, turn around is a week or so & do I trust them , ermmmmm ??????
Plus as you say it may get you out of trouble in the middle of a multi day trip .
Thanks for the reply

[Charley]

Nice report Gary, also nice to put a face to the name.

I think i'll be signing up for the course now.

Originally Posted by nickb

I consider myself lucky to have Bristol Channel Diving virtually on my doorstep. It really is the best dive-shop I've ever experienced.

Well said Nick, Couldn't of put it better myself.

[warmwaterdiver]

Originally Posted by Charley

I think i'll be signing up for the course now.

am I on commision Neil?

[Charley]

.