rjgiddings
Contributor
After having this zipper replaced by a dive shop - I went on a few dives here in Puget Sound. Kept getting leaks, of which I thought were all at my neck seal. No. Learned the dive shop in Kent is now out of business. Meh. These shops are folding in amazing speed here the last few years.
After being beyond frustrated I finally gave it a pressure test in my bathtub ( soapy spray bottle, scuba tank, inflator hose, and a coffee can holding pressure as it was lodged in the neck seal.) and these bubbly leaks were all along the new zipper seam where it meets the neoprene of the suit. From what I can tell - the metal teeth and their seal are fine.
Fast forward a week, and I try to apply aqua seal to every leak I can find.
Go diving yesterday - and I'm still leaking like, well, like I'm diving a wetsuit. It was 95 in Seattle and that's uncommonly hot...children crying, grown men mumbling and stuttering like idiots, old people start fainting. So the leaky suit was sort of mixed blessing. Yes, I got cool. But extremely frustrated.
I'm now at the point where I'm sending the suit down to Diving Unlimited Intl in San Diego - their website makes this practically seamless, create an account, type in the details about the suit, and voila- I have service order no. now on file. Sending this from Seattle to San Diego is about $30.00 via UPS Ground of which DUI will perform their own version of a comprehensive leak check - and patch up to 6 leak points. (This is a kind of cool premium service they offer w/ a decent $25 discount if I get a c card on file that approves the first go-round, and no other disasterous problems are found, etc.)
My 20/20 perspective is - yes- it pays to have this done professionally upfront. Drysuit zippers are those oddball NASA Apollo era derived items that are like magic. They work great! But if they lose one little tooth- it's done. Gotta replace the entire bloody thing. Cha ching.
Overall I'm happy w/ the suit, the durability, the toughness. But this leaky nonsense has gotten old.
Anyways...rant over. If you've been through this, I would like to know at what point/ how many dives before you started having zipper issues.
Huzzah
After being beyond frustrated I finally gave it a pressure test in my bathtub ( soapy spray bottle, scuba tank, inflator hose, and a coffee can holding pressure as it was lodged in the neck seal.) and these bubbly leaks were all along the new zipper seam where it meets the neoprene of the suit. From what I can tell - the metal teeth and their seal are fine.
Fast forward a week, and I try to apply aqua seal to every leak I can find.
Go diving yesterday - and I'm still leaking like, well, like I'm diving a wetsuit. It was 95 in Seattle and that's uncommonly hot...children crying, grown men mumbling and stuttering like idiots, old people start fainting. So the leaky suit was sort of mixed blessing. Yes, I got cool. But extremely frustrated.
I'm now at the point where I'm sending the suit down to Diving Unlimited Intl in San Diego - their website makes this practically seamless, create an account, type in the details about the suit, and voila- I have service order no. now on file. Sending this from Seattle to San Diego is about $30.00 via UPS Ground of which DUI will perform their own version of a comprehensive leak check - and patch up to 6 leak points. (This is a kind of cool premium service they offer w/ a decent $25 discount if I get a c card on file that approves the first go-round, and no other disasterous problems are found, etc.)
My 20/20 perspective is - yes- it pays to have this done professionally upfront. Drysuit zippers are those oddball NASA Apollo era derived items that are like magic. They work great! But if they lose one little tooth- it's done. Gotta replace the entire bloody thing. Cha ching.
Overall I'm happy w/ the suit, the durability, the toughness. But this leaky nonsense has gotten old.
Anyways...rant over. If you've been through this, I would like to know at what point/ how many dives before you started having zipper issues.
Huzzah
