Miller Dunn Style 2
Probably the most famous of all shallow water helmets. They were manufactured by the Miller Dunn Company of Miami, Florida USA. These helmets were used by the US Navy and by civilians for many years. These shallow water helmets allowed the general public to start entering the underwater world: biologists, researchers or regular people were able to dive with them fulfilling the helmet’s slogan: “DIVINGHOOD, so simple anyone can use it”
Miller Dunn is no longer in business, but its helmets live and are still used for pleasure within Teamwork Groups worldwide.
The first Miller Dunn Style 1 helmet was sold in 1916. It was made from copper sheet, folded into a cylinder, with brass accessories and a 15.24 cm. hemisperical top section. It requires four external lead weights to counter its buoyancy and balance it for diving.
We are now presenting the Miller Dunn Style 2 helmet. It was first manufactured in 1925 and we know this from its identity plaque, which was changed in 1926. Also, the early Style 2 helmets had a narrower shoulder curve than the one we have. It is impossible to date a Miller Dunn helmet in a specfic one or two years due to the lack of numbering or markings. In this specific helmet the number 30 appears in the inside rim of the central window.
The helmet has a cylindrical shape, with a hemispheric top section, and has a rounded edge in the bottom section so it will adjust and fit comfortably to the diver’s shoulders, upper chest and back. The unballasted helmet weighs 11.9 kilograms, but when the adequate lead ballast of four 3.82 kilogram lead weights is added, it weighs 27.18 kilograms. A handle is fitted externally to the top of the helmet so as to ease handling. The threaded air inlet is known as a “swan neck”, and small holes in the bottom part allow the air to exit.
This helmet was officially adopted by the U.S. Navy for use in shallow water. Due to the helmet having two differently oriented glass panes in the front window, if the diver sees through both panes with each eye looking through a different pane, the diver will have his vision distorted by two different simultaneous images. To avoid this, the diver should see exclusively through one of the two panes.
