Hi all,
Wanted to get opinions on repairing my old nova scotia semi-dry's zipper seal. The zipper itself is great and I've kept it lubricated so mercifully no issues with the teeth/pulling/etc. However as you can see the issue is the sealing around the zipper is flaking off (probably due to the suit being an older model of the nova scotia semidry). This is making me a cold, cold diver. And this thing kept the water OUT before the seal failed!
I am not super knowledgeable about this type of wetsuit construction, but to me it seems like if the zipper is fine but the material around it is flaking, I could potentially coat the flaking bits with flex seal? I've heard of people having issues with flexseal flaking off on the inside of suits (yechh) however this would be an exterior repair and the back of my shoulders. Which doesn't seem like a high-movement zone so besides the pulling of the fabric from zipping and unzipping, possibly the flex seal would hold up?
1) I am cheap and 2) don't live near a lot of scuba shops so I'm not even sure who I could send this thing to for repair. And I'm salty about needing to potentially ship off for a zipper repair when the teeth and pull are working just fine. Seems like most people's zippers break first before the seals give out.
Is this a bad idea? Or could this potentially buy me some more time?
Wanted to get opinions on repairing my old nova scotia semi-dry's zipper seal. The zipper itself is great and I've kept it lubricated so mercifully no issues with the teeth/pulling/etc. However as you can see the issue is the sealing around the zipper is flaking off (probably due to the suit being an older model of the nova scotia semidry). This is making me a cold, cold diver. And this thing kept the water OUT before the seal failed!
I am not super knowledgeable about this type of wetsuit construction, but to me it seems like if the zipper is fine but the material around it is flaking, I could potentially coat the flaking bits with flex seal? I've heard of people having issues with flexseal flaking off on the inside of suits (yechh) however this would be an exterior repair and the back of my shoulders. Which doesn't seem like a high-movement zone so besides the pulling of the fabric from zipping and unzipping, possibly the flex seal would hold up?
1) I am cheap and 2) don't live near a lot of scuba shops so I'm not even sure who I could send this thing to for repair. And I'm salty about needing to potentially ship off for a zipper repair when the teeth and pull are working just fine. Seems like most people's zippers break first before the seals give out.
Is this a bad idea? Or could this potentially buy me some more time?