Where do drysuits go to die?

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Sintax604

Contributor
Messages
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Location
Richmond, BC, CANADA
# of dives
500 - 999
I bought a whole set of gear second hand (really cheap) and later discovered (the hard way) that the drysuit leaks... a lot.

It's a Wardell Invader (predecessor of Trident brand) shell suit. I used up an entire tube of AquaSeal on the really obvious trouble spots only to get another soaker. I'm thinking the zipper may be leaking (in addition to several other spots).

Anyway, it's a large item which once cost a lot of money so I'm hesitant to just throw it away. Do dive shops take old suits and recycle them or send them to third world countries or something? :D I am considering cutting it up for patch material or using it for a halloween costume but I dunno...

Comments? Suggestions?
 
Anyway, it's a large item which once cost a lot of money so I'm hesitant to just throw it away. Do dive shops take old suits and recycle them or send them to third world countries or something? :D I am considering cutting it up for patch material or using it for a halloween costume but I dunno...

If the zipper is really bad, and the suit is old, it's probably shot, however you could always put it up on eBay and see if anybody wants it. Just make sure you're really explicit about the leaks and possible zipper problem, so the buyer doesn't think you tried to hose him. You might just find someone with no money and a lot of time and aquaseal that wants to take a crack at it.

OTOH, the zipper might be just fine. You can flip the suit inside out, plug the neck and arms with soda bottles, pressurize it and cover it with soapy water to see where the problems really are.

Terry
 
Where do drysuits go to die?

Wherever you bought your dry suit from! or.. Ebay! ha ha
 
A drysuit always has value to someone, even if it's not something you would want to dive in.

You can either patch the leaks yourself (and you may require material as well as aquaseal) or sell it as a leaky suit for cheap. (Suggested headline: mostly dry suit for sale)

As previous stated, the easiest way to check a drysuit for leaks is to put a jar in each wrist and a bigger jar in the neck. Tie up the neck seal, inflate the suit, and listen for leaks. (Use your tank and inflator, and fill it like a balloon. No, more air. More. More. A little more...) Rub soapy water generously on the whole suit and watch for bubbles. You may have to lean on the suit to get air to leak out of it. You shouldn't hurt the suit, and if you do, that part would likely have blown out during a dive anyway. Mark the bubbles with a grease pencil and patch them up. I was able to find a few holes in my suit, and I was able to dive totally dry after a little aquaseal lovin'. (Warning: Do not use Aquaseal for lovin'.)

Who knows? The last diver may have lost buoyancy right near a sea urchin festival. Maybe the rubber is toast. The seals have a finite lifetime - they will stop sealing over time.

The valves are expensive. If they are in good shape, then you can try selling them on their own. In my town, replacement valves would run $110 for exhaust and $80 for inflator. That's new, but you could probably get 1/2 that if they are working. Now's a good time to take a valve apart (try the inflator first) and see how they work. Maybe the o-rings inside the seals are gone, or maybe the seals aren't fitting the suit properly.

If the suit is not patchable for diving, it may be suitable for surface water sports like kayaking, windsurfing, etc. They don't pressurize their suits, and can probably tolerate a bit more leakage. You'd have to do something about the big honkin' hole in the middle of the chest, but you could leave that up to the buyer.

Failing that, it's either a lame Hallowe'en costume or a kick-ass (but weird looking) raincoat.
 
A drysuit always has value to someone, even if it's not something you would want to dive in.

Failing that, it's either a lame Hallowe'en costume or a kick-ass (but weird looking) raincoat.

Especially if it has a P-valve.:D
 
they go to drysuit heaven...

however, you could use the shell as a practice suit to learn dive suit repair skills, provided you have the time and interest in that. or say you plan to do a cuff seal replacement on a new expensive suit some years from now, then if you still have this one, you could do a practice run on it first with an old seal.

otherwise- if you plan to toss the suit, then remove the valves first, and if they work, keep them for backup/repair parts, or take them apart just to see what's going on inside (in case you need to fix a valve in the future). or say this suit has an adjustable shoulder exhaust valve, and suppose you end up with a suit that has only a small cuff dump, then you could switch to this suit's shoulder valve, or use it for an OPV (if that's a concern).

give the zipper a good cleaning too (wash with toothbrush in warm water, pick off old/excess wax (especially from the end where it tends to accumulate), and burn off frayed threads... if you can get it to work, maybe it's worth keeping as a repair part, either for practice in case you think you might ever do a zipper replacement yourself, or maybe to use for some home project. for example, if you break a wetsuit zipper on an old suit and are consequently about to toss said suit, then you could first try replacing it's zipper with this suit's dry-zip if the size fits... i mean, I wouldn't use it as a replacement part for anything important since you said it's in poor condition, but it could still be of some value in a less important and/or practice project.

If the socks or boots fit, then keep those too in case you end up with another suit with ill fitting socks/boots. And to that end keep the sleeves too - maybe you'll end up with some used suit that's too short in the limbs, but otherwise nice, in which case you might be able to use the legs and arms from this suit to extend the other ones.

The material from the seals could also be used to repair tears/rips in your future drysuit seals, so keep those. or if you can get the seals off cleanly (this is a good chance to practice that by the way), then you could even keep them to use as emergency replacements, or to use them for some home project. For example, you could glue the wrist seals on a pair of cheap smurf gloves to try out how you would like ringless drygloves or similar. or just make a pair of ringless drygloves for a friend to try. Now I don't know whether your drysuit has latex or neoprene seals, but either way, if your next suit has different type seals, and you like them less, then you could try replacing them with the seals on this suit (depending on the condition of these seals - obviously if you need to replace the seals, then you might want to use fresh ones lest all your work be for naught). and look into proper storage; maybe some silicone spray followed by vacuum sealing and storing in a cool, dark place away from ozone. Not sure if the fridge would be good, but I think cooler is usually better... Some (mostly tech) divers carry a replacement wrist seal in a drysuit pocket to use underwater or between dives for emergency field repairs; something to do in conjunction with dry glove rings I think, but I'm not sure about the details right now, I just read about it somewhere.
 
If the zipper is good and the suit isn't punched full of holes

I fixed a dry suit for a buddy. Here is how I did it.

Turn the suit inside out and loosely stuff it with something (packing peanuts, wadded newspaper, chunks of foam rubber, etc.)

Go to Boaters World or West Marine and buy a caulking tube of 3M 5200, a quart paint can, some paint thinner, a mixing stick, and a small paint brush ( 1/2 to 1 inch).

Squirt about half the 5200 in to the paint can and thin it with paint thinner till it is about the consistency of latex house paint. Careful, it's easy to over do it. Use your paint brush and paint every seam in the suit. Close the can, wait five days or so, then open the can and paint all the seams again. Give the suit a couple of weeks to dry. After the paint thinner flashes off, you can periodically mist the 5200 with water and it will cure quicker. 5200 is a urethane sealant (like Aquaseal) and absorbs moisture from the air to cure.

The 5200 will remain flexible (but a little stiff).

If you think it is cured and flip the suit right side out too soon, it will glue itself together and becomes trashcan fodder at that point.

I told another dive buddy about this trick. He had a 7mm drysuit that had several leaks and he had been fighting them for a while. He just stuffed the suit full of newspaper, put the 5200 in a caulking gun, and caulked every seam in the suit (on the outside). It has been water tight ever since and he swears by the stuff.

You can do this with Aquaseal, but 5200 is the same stuff and much cheaper. The only real difference is that you can't buy 5200 in clear. It is available in white, black, and brown.

Bill.
 
Thanks very much folks for all the great suggestions! I can't believe I almost threw it away! I LOVE the caulking idea - holy crap, how did you figure that one out?! Now if only I had some free time to work on it...
 

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