After finishing my Diver Medic Technician course I went for a short tour around Britain to visit two manufacturers sponsoring my adventures as a scholar. Looking at a map I was a bit skeptic but when I actually checked the anticipated travel time by train, I realized England really isn’t that big. So from Plymouth I traveled north to Blackburn where I was welcomed to the factory of Apeks by Peter and Dean.
Coming from Sweden where our water temperature is not always very inviting I know how important it is to have a high performing regulator that doesn’t suddenly decide to freeze and start dumping all your precious gas. It happens, and is no fun for anyone. I´ve used Apeks regulators for years and so do most of my friends at home and very seldom do we have any problems, regardless of what time of the year it is. Being a service technician for the brand I´ve also always appreciated the straightforwardness of maintenance.
For me to have a chance to walk around the factory and look at where the regulators are made was an interesting experience for sure. The first thing that hit me was the size of the place. Machines everywhere that just constantly kept spitting out parts all around made me feel a bit like a kid in a candystore. Peter and Dean showed me around the place and explained how every part of process was made in house making it possible to keep a very tight contact between development, manufacturing and testing, leading to high quality products. It also gives the option to come up with an idea and then go down and test it out in the workshop.
Having spent a day at the factory and talking to the guys I admire that they seem to all the time look ahead and try to improve their products instead of stagnating and just keep going with the same old thing.
After Apeks I travelled across the country again to visit Molecular Products who makes something completely different, namely Sofnolime. This as you may know is the scrubber material used in many of the rebreathers today to get rid of the CO2 in the breathing loop. And this is really the key to what rebreather diving is, removing the CO2 and adding oxygen. Seeing how this is such an central and important part of RB´s I was happy to get a chance to come and see how its made and learn a bit more about the chemistry behind it. One has to understand that even if we as divers mostly know Molecular Products for the rebreather diving this is only part of their market and they have products for many other fields ranging from anesthesia to submarines.
I was welcomed with open arms and showed around the place. Being used to the 20kg crates of Sofnolime I was stunned when standing in a room filled with tons and tons of the stuff. Then it hits you what sort of capacity they have. Even thou Molecular Products produce tons of the scrubber material they are very aware that their products are relied upon to keep people alive and test everything accordingly. Everything that leaves the factory has been tested and they are absolutely sure that it performs within the specifications. This really makes it easier for me on the consumer end to relax when packing that scrubber knowing that every batch is always functioning and has been proven to be so.
