Any good ideas for cleaning a mask?

[love2godeep]

My mask has suddenly started leaking—a lot. I took it to the LDS, planning to get a new one; but they told me that the mask looks good and there is no reason it should leak. (It's prescription, and they don't make that style anymore, so a replacement would be expensive.)

The guy at the LDS told me to give it a good cleanup, and try some vaseline around the edges. Does that sound reasonable?

And do you have any recommendations for cleaning a mask? It has some spots that are probably salt water--I always rinse it in fresh water, but sometimes the places I am at don't have totally fresh water anywhere, except for bottled drinking water.

I'm going on a dive vacation next month, and I don't really want the dives spoiled with a mask that floods all the time.

Thanks!

 

[Hank49]

If I see algae or whatever growing in the seam around where the frame and silicon meet the glass, I take it apart and clean each part individually. But it doesn't sound like this is the problem. This growth of algae doesn't cause my masks to leak....it just makes my wife want to throw up. Have you recently grown a mustache or had plastic surgery on your face? Or is there a pinhole in the silicon you haven't yet spotted?

 

[spectrum]

http://home.gwi.net/~spectrum/scuba_mask.html#cleaning

 

[redacted]

rIt doesn't sound like cleaning is going to be the cure for your leaking problem. You may have to study the problem a bit closer to determine the source(s) of the leak. Basically it needs to be coming around a bad seal to you face, thru a seal between a lens and the skirt, or thru a hole. Once you find the cause of the leak, you may be able to find a cure. What type mask is it? Many of the more popular discontinued masks often show up on ebay. I've picked up a couple spares for my wife's Scubapro Focus with prescription lenses.

 

[spectrum]

My mask has suddenly started leaking—a lot

Suddenly and nothing is obviously torn or broken.

Have you by any chance gotten a new hood? If so it may need venting.

Pete

 

[bperrybap]

Have you gained/lost a lot of weight since you bought the mask?
If so, the shape of your face may have changed slightly and it
no longer seals as well.

Have you recently replaced your mask strap? Perhaps the
tension on the new strap is different. Mine leaks like crazy
if my strap is too tight. Try loosening up your strap to see
if that helps.

Is your hair style different now? (Longer?) I often catch my hair
in my mask skirt and it leaks and its not always obvious to me
during the dive where the hair is.

It could be you are just seeing alot of really cool stuff and
are smiling really big and letting water leak in around your smile
lines...

I clean mine with BC cleaner from McNett. After cleaning,
my skirt goes from cloudy back to nice and clear again.

--- bill

 

[DiveMaven]

As I understand it, Vaseline will cause silicone to deteriorate, so you never want to use it on a mask.

 

[rsilva708]

One thing you can do is look for a replacement mask that has the same lens shape. My ocean master mask recently started to leak because of a rip in the nose pocket. It has prescription lenses. After a bit of a search, I found 5 masks by different manufactures that use the same lenses. What mask is it?

 

[love2godeep]

Thanks for the ideas. I took awap's advice and looked on ebay. There was one like mine there; I picked it up for $10 and I'll see if that makes a difference. It's a ScubaPro mask I got about 12 years ago. I don't know the model, but from the picture it looked like mine.

Billl, maybe you're right and I'm just smiling down there! I know I feel like it! It is the weirdest thing, because often the first part of the dive will be fine and suddenly the mask starts flooding. I'm quite relaxed underwater, so I don't think it's related to anxiety. Yeah, maybe I'm just smiling!