Adjusting Seals on Drysuit

[Aaron528]

I tried out my Bare Nex Gen Pro drysuit in the pool for the first time today. I read the owner's manual carefully and went through the padi drysuit manual before doing anything with it. This suit has latex seals; I ended up trimming the neck 2 rings down from the stock setting. The neck still feels too tight, but it was tolerable. After about 30 min my hands went numb and started turning blue. Too much constriction. The wrist seals are the bottle design; cylindrical not conical. The manual specifically stated they don't get trimmed.

The instructor at my LDS suggested stretching the seals by pulling the wrist seals over a wine bottle, and the neck seal over a football or a tank and leaving them to sit overnight. From all the reading I've done, I saw neoprene seals being treated this way, but also read latex has a very strong memory and doesn't stretch much.

I'm open to reading suggestions from folks here experienced with drysuits. I can't dive the suit the way it is.

 

[tstormdiver]

I've done that to my neck seals before (stretched over a cylinder). You would have to leave them stretched for a very long time for that kind of memory to develop. I've left the neck seal stretched over a cylinder for over a week & barely noticed any real change.

 

[Bubbletrubble]

You can trim the wrist seals, but due to the bottleneck design it probably won't make much of a difference...unless you trim it all the way back to the wide-mouth part (which you obviously shouldn't do).

The wrist seals will loosen up a little over time. Stretching them out over a form, such as a wine bottle, is worth a shot but I doubt that it will do much. The latex seals don't have much of a "memory."

The stock Bare bottleneck wrist seals come in different sizes. My medium Nex-Gen Pro came with medium wrist seals. Obviously people have different sized wrists. You should ask your LDS to install a larger size set of wrist seals. The LDS should provide this service free of charge. Be forewarned, this may entail sending your suit back to the Bare factory for seal replacement. The entire process could take as long as a couple of weeks.

Good luck.

 

[Aaron528]

I bought this suit online, not from an LDS. I guess I'll have to speak with Bare and find out what the stock size is with this suit. I wear a small. I don't know what the size of the wrists seals is but I think it's odd that the feet would fit me but the wrists do not.

 

[Paleface]

I had the same problem with my Pinnacle. Try the stretching because mine is getting more comfortable with each dive.

 

[Teamcasa]

Wrist seals are easy to replace. There is no sense fighting or suffering with a poorly fitting seal.
Try these guys, you won't be disappointed.
OS SYSTEMS - The Drysuit People

 

[Aaron528]

Wrist seals are easy to replace. There is no sense fighting or suffering with a poorly fitting seal.
Try these guys, you won't be disappointed.
OS SYSTEMS - The Drysuit People

They may be "easy to replace" but it's a brand new suit, and replacing them is expensive. I guess there's a trade off between buying stock and buying custom. Still, I'm not happy about it. Does anyone reading this have experience with Bare? I'm hoping I won't be charged full price, since it's a new suit.

 

[Bubbletrubble]

They may be "easy to replace" but it's a brand new suit, and replacing them is expensive. I guess there's a trade off between buying stock and buying custom. Still, I'm not happy about it. Does anyone reading this have experience with Bare? I'm hoping I won't be charged full price, since it's a new suit.

Be patient. The fact that the wrist seals don't fit isn't anyone's fault, so there's no reason to be "unhappy" about it.

This is an issue that you need to take up with the online retailer. Tell the retailer that the drysuit wrist seals don't fit. The retailer will work things out with Bare. You mentioned that the suit is a size small. In all likelihood, the manufacturer matched up size "small" wrist seals with the drysuit in its stock configuration. That's pretty reasonable in my book. It's really just a guess on the part of the manufacturer. Installation of the next size up wrist seals (medium?) really shouldn't be a big deal. I'd recommend using a tape measure to get the circumference of your wrists. That's the measurement that one would need to ensure that the wrist seals will fit.

I don't think it's unreasonable to request that a new drysuit has new seals that fit. Just make your case to the online retailer. I'd be surprised if your request were not accommodated.

On a side note, I'm shocked that your instructor didn't suggest this course of action. The fact that your hands turned purple implies that the wrist seals were more than just a little tight. They were very tight, probably so much so that it necessitates installing larger sized seals.

FYI, in the grand scheme of things, wrist seal replacement isn't a costly fix. A new pair of wrist seals runs approx. $35 + labor costs. Take care of your drysuit zipper during storage and transport to/from dive sites. Don't ever place anything heavy on top of that zipper. Zipper replacement generally runs about $300 (approx. $150 for dry zipper + approx. $150 for labor).

For outside-of-warranty seal replacement, Bare will charge a substantial amount for the suit to be worked on at its factory. A nice alternative is DIY seal replacement, which is fairly straightforward. I have had good luck with OS Systems latex seals and the OS Systems adhesive PB-300. The adhesive that DUI uses on its TLS drysuits does not work with the Bare Nex-Gen drysuit material (not sure what secret sauce DUI uses).

 

[Bogie]

I would try stretching them first then cut a small amount and slowly work yourself down to the size that seals and is not too constricting.

 

[Aaron528]

I would try stretching them first then cut a small amount and slowly work yourself down to the size that seals and is not too constricting.

Thanks for the advice. Stretch...maybe, but there is nothing to "work down" to. The part that seals the wrist is a cylinder about 7cm in length, then it abruptly angles out to the dimension of the cuff of the suit, then straight again. Looks like a wine bottle shape. Nothing to trim.