How to Drown Yourself DIY Style
One of the things you notice when reading these old magazines is that liability law did not really seem to exist in the first half of the century. Some of the activities and devices promoted by these magazines are just plain dangerous. We’ve covered crazy schemes to give city kids fresh air by hanging them out of apartment windows, playground equipment that seems designed to crack heads open, electric baths and children’s car seats that look like they’ll catapult the child through the windshield. Modern Mechanix in particular seemed to love publishing ingenious ways to drown yourself. Here are a few of my favorites:
Cooky Jar Diving Bell
These two brothers both made homemade diving helmets. Their first model used a water tank and their second, designed to increase visibility, used their mother’s pilfered cooky jar.
Build a Diving Helmet from a Water Heater
Not content with just showing projects made by their readers, this 1932 article from How To Build It magazine (a spinoff of Modern Mechanix) teaches kids how to make their own diving helmet from a water heater. Air is pumped in via a pair of small bellows. You’d better hope your little brother doesn’t get tired pumping those things!
Building a Tin Can Diving Helmet
There must have been some issues with Modern Mechanix’ first design because barely a year and a half later they published these new and improved diving helmet plans. I must say the air pumping system on this one looks a lot more functional.
Take Thrilling Underwater Cruise in ONE-MAN SUB
If anything this project seems even more dangerous than the diving helmets. You basically seal yourself into a (hopefully) air-tight tin can and have your friends drag you along 30 feet beneath the surface at 15 MPH behind their boat.
“Suicide Club”
Just in case you were wondering if anyone actually followed the plans and built any of these things, here’s a short 1935 article about a group of Los Angeles youths dubbed “The Suicide Club”. Not only did they build and use these contraptions, but they did it with the approval of the city playgrounds department.
DIY Gas Mask
This one doesn’t quite fit the theme, but suffocation is suffocation and you really have to wonder about any gas mask that requires you to hold your nose.
By the way: This is the first post in a new series called “From the Archives” designed to give newer readers a look at some of the best posts from the last few years. The archives have gotten pretty big now; almost 4,000 posts, with over 9,000 images, and there are lots of great articles in there. So once or twice a week I’m going to pick a topic that ties together a number of articles from the archives and try to form some sort of narrative around them.
I would also like to open up this section for guest posts from any of our readers. If you have a particular subject you like, have expertise in, or have noticed some pattern such as “Everything Cool in the 1930’s was designed in Germany”, please send me an email and let me know what you have in mind. Feel free to make it as long or short as you like and to include links to other sites and sources.
This helmet is very dangerous on two points:
1. It depends upon the bellows for air pressure to keep water out of the helmet.
2. There is no non-return valve in the helmet to keep air in it of the supply is lost.
This latter point is especially bad if the diver is deep (greater than 5 feet), and there is a seal made at the shoulders. Loss of air would then allow the water pressure to try to force the diver’s body into the helmet, and through the small holes in the top (assuming that the hose stayed intact). This led to a number of diver deaths in the early days of diving, and is very, very dangerous. This helmet should never be dived!!!
John C. Ratliff
Comment by John C. Ratliff — March 4, 2008 @ 12:16 pm
I forgot to add that I’ve been diving since 1959, and am a Certified Safety Professional. Please do not dive this helmet.
John C. Ratliff, CSP
Comment by John C. Ratliff — March 4, 2008 @ 1:01 pm
Don’t worry John, I doubt if any of the odd collection of science history geeks that read this blog
are foolish enough to try ANY of these ideas.
However, if they’re considering it I suggest they send a bio to the Darwin Awards before trying one.
Comment by Stannous — March 4, 2008 @ 2:37 pm
omg is this some kind of sick joke?????
i only found this site looking up drowning as a type of sucide for i project!!!!!!!!
this is not funny it’s serious you know!!!! people drown themselves as a way out and is a REAL sucide attemt
i h8 this site!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Comment by sandy — March 20, 2008 @ 7:38 am
I smell a troll.
Comment by Desiree — April 19, 2008 @ 3:25 pm
dunno…some simple modifications and they might work well. might.
Comment by Cole — May 11, 2008 @ 12:24 pm
The helmets are shallow water dive helmets, perfectly viable and have been around since the early 1800’s. They don’t need a relief valve, the air escapes past the shoulders as it’s designed to do. People still use them to this day, quite safely too. Look it up on google if you don’t believe me. The US navy made good use of them during WW2. They can be used to a depth of 30ft as long as the usual safety principles of breathing air under pressure are observed, and it’s a good idea to not bend over. They are not meqant to be attached to the diver, it simply rests on the shoulders and need to be weighted to counter the air inside. Out of interests sake do a web search for Miller Dunn for you doubting Thomases . The bellows shown are barely adequate, and that submarine is pure insanity.
Comment by Luke S — May 11, 2008 @ 2:32 pm
Forgot to add that Mr Ratliff’s comment above re the non-return valve is a good one, but once the air supply fails it doesn’t matter too much either way.
Comment by Luke S — May 11, 2008 @ 2:41 pm
I really wish there was an edit function here, dammit. To further clarify what I was trying to say, the helmet shown above is not safe (well duh). It should not be strapped to the diver, it should not have an apron around it, there is no non-return valve shown, the bellows are inadequate and the article itself is dangerous due to a lack of information combined with misinformation. Having said that these helmets do actually work, but not as shown. They must have the ability to leak air from around the bottom or alternatively have a relief valve in the back. I shouldn’t make un-editable posts so early in the morning.
Comment by Luke S — May 11, 2008 @ 3:09 pm