I picked up a used drysuit in good shape, however, there is craze cracking on the outer seal surfaces near the stretch points and so I have decided to replace them. A quick search of the internet and it came apparent that this is no minor expense. Frankly, I don't do enough cold water diving to justify this cost of a somewhat routine process if you break it out on a per dive basis (yeah, unfortunately, that is the way my mind works). So I am thinking I might try to replace them myself.
Basically I am looking for insight, opinions and encouragement to proceed with this option. I have located the seals and supplies, now it is just pulling the trigger and doing it. Beyond the obvious are there any tricks or things to watch out for? While I am new to scuba drysuits I have replaced wrists and ankle seals on my waterski drysuit in the past with success-however, I have never replaced the neck seal personally.
I would welcome any insight-positive or negative.
From DA Aquamaster
In a nutshell:
1. Remove the old tape and seal (heat with a hair dryer helps)
2. Fit a suitable plug in the sleave to keep the cuff tight (plastic drinking glass of suitable size, etc).
3. Place the new seal so that it properly overlaps the cuff like the old seal did (the plug will keep it in place)
4. Roll the new seal back so that it butts up against the edge of the cuff.
5. Lightly sand the portion of the seal rolled back on the plug and clena the matring surfaces
6. Apply three coats of glue on both the rolled back portion of the seal and the cuff where it will overlap with 10 minutes between the first 2 coats and 5 minutes between the third.
7. Then roll the seal back onto the glued portion of the cuff and go over it firmly with a roller (small diameter smooth sided can, pop can, etc) to remove any air bubbles and ensure proper adhesion.
8. If you like, apply glue to the nylon tape you removed in step one and to the seal and reapply the tape over the portion of the seal on the cuff. It adds some abrasion reistance to what is the high point of the seal.
9. Let it dry and remove the plug.
DUI makes a really good glue for this application but it has a limited shelf life. Ordinary rubber cement believe it or not also works fine, especially if you back it up with the nylon tape.
It is actually something you can do in the field during a 2-3 hour surface interval.
Neck seals on the other hand are a little harder to do as you canno use a plug to support them underneath and under tension like the wrist seal.
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Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take, but rather by the number of moments that take your breath away.
From Bob 3:
(The slide show is great)
A person with the hand-eye coordination needed to post a message here has the necessary skills needed to swap out a set of cuffs!!!
In addition to the handy checklist compliments of DA Aquamaster, the proper surface prep cannot be overemphasized.
That means degrease -> sand/scuff -> degrease again w/ a clean rag.
New cuffs frequently have silicone mould release agents still on them. Lack of thorough surface prep is the fastest and most assured way to mess up any glue job.
No discussion of suit repair is complete without mentioning the Airspeed Press book "WETSUIT AND DRYSUIT MAINTENANCE AND REPAIR"
By Steven Lindblom
I have a downloadable slideshow at:
http://comdive.com/cuffs.zip
Do a "right click, save as".
It's a zipped self-unpacking exe file made back when the internet was all dialup so compressing to a small file size was pretty important.
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