# HMCS Star



## cameron_highlander (11 Jan 2006)

Can I get the street address for this place please, ASAP?

It's where I need to go to vote tomorrow.


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## old medic (11 Jan 2006)

It should be in the local phone book.


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## Jimmy C (11 Jan 2006)

It is located in Hamilton, it is on Lake Ontario if I remember correctly. Here is the address: 
650 Catherine St. North
Hamilton ON


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## pc (11 Jan 2006)

Just remember that you can't just take Catharine St up there, a park is in the way.  Turn at the lakeport brewery on burlington st.


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## NavyShooter (20 Jan 2006)

Amusingly, we have a Chemox here onboard that has been stencilled with HMCS STAR on the box....

Makes you wonder sometimes where things travel to get where they are today.

On the topic of chemoxes....how many museums have you seen them in so far?  I'm up to 3....

NS


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## super stoker (27 Jan 2006)

NavyShooter said:
			
		

> Amusingly, we have a Chemox here onboard that has been stencilled with HMCS STAR on the box....
> 
> Makes you wonder sometimes where things travel to get where they are today.
> 
> ...



HAHA^^^  I was checking the DA list the other day here at STAR and we have 2 chemox's in boxes, and one expty box...We are supposed to have six complete sets!  Looks like we found one.


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## Navy_Blue (27 Jan 2006)

Darn the Montreal will loose a Chemox go and take them all please


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## zipperhead_cop (29 Jan 2006)

Okay, I'll bite.  What is a chemox? ???


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## NavyShooter (29 Jan 2006)

> Also in our museum is a MSA Chemox or Navy Breather. The Chemox breathers were placed in service in Woodbury during February 1960, fifteen years after World War II ended. Chemox is a reference to the oxygen producing chemical in the canister.² The Chemox units had a canister that generated oxygen from the moisture in the breath of the user. There were two exposed soft bags or lungs that stored the oxygen for the user. The lungs and canister were worn on the chest of the user. To start the unit you would insert the canister by screwing a clamp at the bottom which would force the top into a piercing device. This was known as lighting off the unit. You would have to inflate the lungs. This would "prime" the unit. The moisture in the storage lungs would start the chemical reaction. Then you would put the mask on. Once you started breathing into the mask, your breath was routed into the canister were the moisture would continue reacting with the chemicals releasing more oxygen and at the same time absorbing carbon dioxide.
> 
> 
> The units had a manual timer that the user would have to set when he lit off his canister. The timers could be set to 60 minutes. However the canisters were only rated for 45 minutes. The canister generated a great deal of heat during the chemical reaction. The user was protected by an air space provided in the chest harness thus keeping the canister away from the body. Disposal of the canister today is considered hazardous waste. The Woodbury Fire Department stop using the Chemox breathers in the early 1970's. However the United States Navy is still using the Chemox breathers on board their ships today (as of the last time we checked  in 1998).



http://www.therebreathersite.nl/Zuurstofrebreathers/USA/msa_chemox.htm

http://www.therebreathersite.nl/Zuurstofrebreathers/USA/photos_msa_chemox.htm


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## zipperhead_cop (29 Jan 2006)

*SWEET MOTHER OF PEARL!!*
That looks like something from Dr. Strangelove!  You guys still use those things?  What does thirty years of trapped breath smell like?  There must be something better available?


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## NavyShooter (29 Jan 2006)

We do use them.  

It's not the best, nor most modern system, and I personally would love to see something better, but I know it would take a significant amount of engineering to install.

The beauty of the Chemox system is that a small box of chemical cannisters holds enough air for 6 hours.  

6 hours worth of air bottles is a half dozen large air flasks.  Which need special handling/storage because they're pressurized.

Having a smaller number of bottles is do-able, but only if you have refill stations and lines through the ship, which means a whole new HP Air system installed, capable of providing BREATHABLE SAFE air to users.  

Then there's the re-training.  Currently, there's only the CSE Departments and the firefighters that are trained in Scott Air Packs, and the time needed to retrain the entire fleet?  YIKES.  

Anyhow.  

They're not great, and not all of us like them.  When I have personally seen them in 3 seperate museums, I get worried...

But, they're what we have, and they've worked in the fires that we have had on ships in the past number of years.  Ideal no, but they work and we get by.  Welcome to the Navy.

NS


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## zipperhead_cop (29 Jan 2006)

I guess that is the same as the Armoured Corp thinking that Leopard's still constitute a viable peice of equipment (also seen in a few museums).


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