Armor All is da BomB!

[naturewalker36]

instead of using armor all use baby oil but use one part baby oil and 3 parts water mix in a spray bottle and spray on a cloth and wipe your suit down this well lessin the oil residue and u can find organic baby oil too just my 2 cents into this

 

[RonFrank]

I'm going to rinse the suit tonight when I get home. I already diluted the Armor all by wiping it down with a wet wash cloth that I soaked often. As for cracking dashboards I seriously doubt that's true. I've been using Armor all on my cars for decades, and have never found it to crack anything.

For the seal part, I would assume since the seals are on the suit, that when they would be removed the part that would remain would have never been exposed to Armor All. I would also think that after a few dives the product would wear off.

I'm not planning on making this a regular cleaning ritual. But it sure seemed to work well. The suit material was drying out so that it crackled when I rolled it up. It is now much more like it was when I first got it.

I did give it some thought before doing it. For what I paid for this suit used, I would likely purchase a new drysuit if this one has issues after another 50~100 dives. I'll certainly post if this has any impact long term on the suit, but it sure seemed to work well at restoring the suit.

 

[mike_s]

It's just like why people have to avoid sinking ships - it's not the suction that drags people down - it's the reduced friction of the air bubbles escaping the sinking hull - people fall through the air/water mixture and have just enough time to think, "Oh s" and discover that they're at 200', and that's just for starters.
So be careful.

I don't think he's kidding guys...


Actually, there was a televised thing on History/Discovery/TLC that they took a powerboat and pumped a large amount of air through a PVC pipe system set up as a large diffused bubble emitter under the boat.

This was to test the theory that large amounts of gas release (air, methane, etc) under a boat would sink it. Pretty much by the reduction of friction that Tom is talking about....

It sunk it pretty damn quick.

 

[RonFrank]

Be careful with that Armor-All. As it is a super-efficient surfactant reducing the frictional bonds between your drysuit and the surrounding water column, you could go plummeting right down to the bottom and really damage the coral, wreck, or whatever else you slam down on.
It's just like why people have to avoid sinking ships - it's not the suction that drags people down - it's the reduced friction of the air bubbles escaping the sinking hull - people fall through the air/water mixture and have just enough time to think, "Oh s" and discover that they're at 200', and that's just for starters.
So be careful.

 

[Fish_Whisperer]

Hrmmm.. Interesting! Watch out for that methane... It's a real killer!

 

[Matt S.]

It's not reduction of friction that sinks the boat. The bubbles reduce the DENSITY of the water.

 

[mike_s]

Here's some more info on that...

We can split this into another thread at the OP's request since it seems to have side-tracked his thread.



http://dsc.discovery.com/news/afp/20031020/methane.html


Giant Bubbles Could Sink Ships
Anna Salleh, ABC Science Online

Oct. 24, 2003 — Methane bubbles from the sea floor could be responsible for the mysterious sinking of ships in areas like the Bermuda Triangle and the North Sea, new Australian research confirmed.

Computational mathematics honors student David May and supervisor, Professor Joseph Monaghan of Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, reported their research in the American Journal of Physics.

Their modeling suggests that giant bubbles are much more likely to sink ships than previously thought, adding new weight to warnings about ships traveling in areas where bubbles are likely to be.

Huge bubbles can erupt from undersea deposits of solid methane, known as gas hydrates. The methane — found as an odorless gas in swamps and mines — becomes solid under the enormous pressures at the deep sea floor. Under the sea, however, the ice-like methane deposits can break off and become gaseous as they rise, creating bubbles at the surface.

"Sonar surveys of the ocean floor in the North Sea (between Britain and continental Europe) have revealed large quantities of methane hydrates and eruption sites," May and Monaghan said.

These bubbles aren't any old round sphere, according to May. In fact, they are lens-shaped, with a flat bottom and a domed upper surface.

While previous experimental research — using, for example, bubbles in large glass beakers filled with water — have supported the theory that plumes of bubbles can sink ships, May and Monaghan took these ideas further by simulating the event with a computer model.

But first, they trapped water between vertical glass plates and launched gas bubbles from the bottom to see what would happen to a toy ship floating on the surface. They found that a single giant bubble, the same width as the length of a ship, could swamp a ship under certain circumstances.

The researchers also developed a numerical computer model that was able to predict whether the toy ship would sink under different conditions. The computer model — based on the principles of fluid dynamics — related velocity, pressure, and density measurements of both water and gas, in two dimensions. A display showed the movement of the water resulting from a giant bubble and its impact on a computerized "ship."

May and Monaghan checked the accuracy of the computer model by feeding different sized real bubbles into the glass tank and seeing whether the ship sank as it was placed in different positions in relation to the bubble.

Whether or not the ship will sink depends on its position relative to the bubble. If it is far enough from the bubble, it is safe, they said. If it is exactly above the bubble, it also is safe — the danger position is between the bubble's middle point and the edge of the mound where the trough formed.

"When we started playing around with the model, we saw lots of interesting features at the surface that hadn't been discussed in the literature," May told ABC Science Online.

"I thought the bubble would rise up, burst and create a cavity that the ship would fall into and it wouldn't sink. But instead, you got an elevation of water — a sphere of water that the boat would slide off. But when the bubble burst, you got this high velocity jet of fluid spurting down into the water, pushing the boat under with it."

The researchers said a recent survey has revealed the presence of a sunken vessel within the center of one particularly large eruption site, now known as the Witches Hole, suspected to be the victim of a bubble.

No one has seen such an eruption in real life, and no one knows how large the bubbles coming off a methane deposit would be or what configuration they would be in. However as soon as bubbles are characterized, measurements can be collected and plugged into the computer model to assess the potential risk to ships passing by, May said.

 

[scarefaceDM]

use olive oil..organic and if your hungry...just grab some sea weed and rub it against your suit with th eolive oil. It will add some flavor to your seaweed salade ..that way you can have a mid water snack...

them be some mighty good eatin..

 

[RonFrank]

Here's some more info on that...

We can split this into another thread at the OP's request since it seems to have side-tracked his thread.

No worries. While off topic it's interesting.

I have little worry that putting armor all on a drysuit is going to create a surface that somehow will result in my sinking at a rate I can not arrest!

I'm more concerned that the product could damage the suit material, but I think that is highly unlikely.

 

[mike_s]

I'm more concerned that the product could damage the suit material, but I think that is highly unlikely.

That would be my concern also..... (damaging the suit) I doubt we'll see you dive-bombing the reef because of this.