Turns out that, aside from the drill-arm, Big Daddies aren’t that far off from the real thing. Our friends at Oobject have assembled 12 of the toughest examples of deep-sea diving suits around — from da Vinci’s cloth prototypes to the bell helmets made famous by countless Scooby-Doo villains.
When you’re done diving through this set, check out these diving helmets and hazmat suits!
Amazing 1911 Chester E Macduffee aluminium Alloy Suit
This looks like its shopped, but its genuine.
Chauncy Hall Diving Suit
What appears to be a tent like cloak. How the two items relate to each other here is not clear. I assume one is a diving bell and the other a suit for roaming near it.
Deep Sea Diver Suit from Historical Society of Washington, D.C.
Edwardian couple – one in a diving suit
Perfectly incongruous. I love the fact that his pose is exactly as if he wasn’t wearing the diving suit.
Karl Heinrich Klingert diving suit, 1797
Chevalier de Beauve’s diving suit 1715
The first suit diving suit concept, complete with lead shoes
Reconstruction of a diving suit designed by Da Vinci
1930s Metal Diving Suit
The arms look somewhat like parts of a kitchen mixer.
Inflatable diving suit
Neufeldt und Kuhnke atmospheric suits
I love this picture, it combines space age modernity with fisherman smoking pipes.
1908 Hall and Rees Submarine escape apparatus
It incorporated a canister containing ‘Oxylithe’, a special chemical which when breathed upon gave off oxygen and absorbed carbon dioxide.