Cleaning gear

[lamarpaulski]

Dedicated, new, plastic trash can. Hose it off first. Soak gear in 1/2 filled trash can for couple hours then dump on lawn. I often flush out BC too. Works for me.

 

[jadairiii]

What parts on the inflator need lube? I take my apart after a soak and clean with vinegar and rinse again and let dry.

Occasionally I will squirt a little silicone spray into the LP nipple and if I take it apart I will lube the o-rings with a light coat of silicone grease. Keeps everything moving nicely and keeps them from drying out. And, like I stated, about every year or two I replace all the o-rings.

 

[Hoag]

Fins, BP/W etc get rinsed for a day or so in a big plastic tub. Camera housing goes in a separate tub.

Mask goes on the top rack of the dishwater (no drying cycle) and my vest, wetsuit & booties get put in the washing machine on "Delicates" cycle. I figure if "finer things" can be safely washed on Delicates, then Neoprene should be able to handle it.

I take my regs into the dive shop for their "annual maintenance".

 

[Brett Hatch]

I've been doing a lot of day trips to the local dive sites, which is a 2-3 hour drive each way. I have been throwing everything in the back of my pickup truck, covered in sand and saltwater, and driving home. By the time I get home, it's pretty late, often dark. So I've been skipping cleaning my gear until the next morning. Is this a huge mistake, or no big deal?

For cleaning routine, I hose off my bp/w, fill the wing with fresh water, and let it soak while I do everything else (about 20 minutes) and then drain it out, fill partially with air, and toss it on a wire rack in the shed to dry. Then I hose off all the small stuff (regs, mask, cutting tools, computer, lights, random boltsnaps, hood, booties, dry gloves), toss them into an 8 gallon stainless cooking pot full of fresh water, the kind you use for homebrewing beer. Toss a couple pieces of lead to keep the neoprene submerged, and let it sit overnight. Every now and then I'll throw some Pau Pilau in there, which is similar to Sink the Stink. I knock the boot off the bottom of the steel tanks with a deadblow hammer and hit them with the hose. I give my drysuit a really good hosing, inside and out, and leave it up to dry on a home-made rack similar to this one. I make sure to flush the P-valve really well with fresh water, which also gets a squirt of diluted isopropyl alcohol immediately after disconnecting.

At that point I used to hose the sand out of my truck's bed, but I kinda don't care that much, so don't bother any more. Maybe by the time I have kids, I'll have enough to make them a sweet sandbox.

 

[Joris Vd]

I usually only rinse my regs and bc+inflator after diving salt water. Warm water in the baththub to remove salt usually does the trick. I know it's a very unpopular opinion on scubaboard but my gf's aqualung's acd on her first stages make it very rinse friendly. I've serviced them twice in the past 3 years and each time the firsts are bone dry. So yes the acd might be a solution looking for a problem, but I feel they hold up to abuse alot more than for example my dst's where I have to be very careful when trying to rinse salt of them.

The rest of my gear I never rinse, i just make sure to do a fresh water dive within a short period of time after diving salt.

 

[TMHeimer]

If you can't get to rinsing thoroughly or a fresh water dive, the solution is to obviously keep everything out of sunlight and maybe more importantly, keep wetsuits, BCD's, and well everything from drying out and having salt crystalize (or chlorine do damage).
Only times I did that were Sat. nights after a class and I was staying over at my daughter's place in the city for the next course dives on Sunday. Just dumped water on it all in the bin in the van for overnight.

 

[CT-Rich]

Wow, some of you guys are going insane with the cleaning. I transport my gear in black cargo box ($8.50 @Home Depot). The entire box, with every thing that got wet goes int the back yard, is filled with water the every thing is sloshed up and down a few times. All the small gear (mask, fins, Regis, lights..) are laid out on a beach matin the garage. Wetsuit, BCD, gloves and boots are on hangers to drain.

A wetsuit is more likely to Damage you washing machine than be damaged. Water can’t drain so spinning cycle is useless and unbalanced.

 

[lexvil]

I just hose most gear off on the driveway, reg goes in a bucket, usually hooked to a 6cf pony, camera, computers lights go in the pool when it warm enough or a sink during the winter.

 

[TMHeimer]

My thorough rinsing process takes about an hour to hour and a half. But I hose off all the nooks & crannies of stuff like boots, weight pockets, pouch belt, BCD pockets and other stuff you can slosh water in or under, etc. Wetsuit thoroughly rinsed inside & out. Then dragging it all in to specific spots to dry for the next dive.
I even wash the tank & even my weights. It's easier to put weights back in the pouch belt when the belt is still wet, and I don't want salty weights going in at that point. I bought the pouch belt I think in 2006? The tabs on the zippers are long broken off, but still using the old belt.
Perhaps I overdo it, but I have very rarely bought new gear over 15 years. Just don't want to spend the money.