How do YOU care for your Whites Fusion?

[amajamar]

My GF and I are new to diving dry, and we both have Fusions. What is your pre and post dive cleaning and storage technique? Any, special considerations for the double layer situation? Do you need to open the velcro to clean properly? Do you use seal saver or talc? How often do you clean and wax the zipper?

Any advice or guidance is much appreciated!

 

[FWADIVER]

rinse it off and hang it to dry, turn it inside out and make sure that is dry, occasionally rinse the inside. powder the seals after every use, wax the zipper when it sticks, clean the zipper with a toothbrush if it was a particularly dirty weekend, or about once a month or so.

 

[ajduplessis]

Would like to Matt's list. Never leave the dryzip in the closed position when not in use.

 

[boulderjohn]

In my experience--and I am talking about not only my suit but many of the suits of friends, almost all of whom dive Fusions--the biggest issue is the sudden an unexplainable degradation of the latex seals. If you do enough research on both SB threads and the Whites site, you will see that I have actively investigated this problem. For some unexplained reason, the latex seals will suddenly start getting gooey. Once that happens, they have to be replaced.

In order to prevent that, I used to keep my suit sealed up as airtight as possible in storage. I kept it sealed inside a plastic storage box. I also used seal saver on them religiously. It seemed to help.

Notice the past tense in the paragraph above.

I later went with the new ring system with silicone seals. The silicone seals are super comfortable, and they require no care. The problem with them--at least in the first generation (I am told), is that they are fragile. After a number of dives with mine, the latex neck seal ripped in half when I was taking it off. I got a new one and replaced it myself before diving again a few weeks ago.

That trip just mentioned was a microcosm of the whole situation. We drove several hours to get to the dive location. While we were suiting up, one of the divers saw that his latex neck seal had gone gooey since his last dive. It had a hole in it, and it could not be used. He watched the day's diving from the shore. After the first dive, one of my silicone wrist seals ripped in half as I was taking it off. Fortunately, another friend also used the new ring system, and he had a spare latex seal. I put it on for the second dive. After the dive, I took it off and gave it back to him. Easy as pie.

I now have a spare (latex) neck seal and three spare wrist seals (1 silicone and 2 latex) in my bag in case of problems. The ring system makes them easy to replace.

By the way, in my investigation of the gooey latex problem, I subjected squares of the latex to every possible common contaminant we could think of, including the one (copper) Whites said was the cause. I could not find anything that caused a problem. I talked with 2 chemists who both said the most likely cause was that the latex was not properly created in the first place and its structure was breaking down over time. (I am not a chemist so I may not have stated that properly.)

 

[amajamar]

It's strange that it would be limited to Whites. The seals on my suits seem to be made by SealTite; don't they make seals for many manufacturers?

One of the suits I purchased used was from my LDS. Last season, before we purchased it, the seals were total disintegrated. I speculated that the flourescent lighting in the shop may have been responsible for that. If it was a bad batch of latex maybe it has been corrected by the manufacturer. The seals in that suit were replaced, and the seals in my other suit are two years old, but have only two dives, so all's good at this time.

I'll be sure to use seal saver on them both...

 

[Jax]

+1 to what boulderjohn says. My neck seal just quit, when it when.

John, have you looked into ozone degradation?

 

[boulderjohn]

+1 to what boulderjohn says. My neck seal just quit, when it when.

John, have you looked into ozone degradation?

Too hard for me to test in my basement "laboratory." The assumption that it was involved, though, is the reason I kept my suit sealed in an airtight container when not in use.

EDIT: I forgot to add this.

I was told that ozone damage results in a form of dry rot, with the seal drying out and falling apart. The degradation I was seeing was a sticky, gooey mess, with the latex turning into something that looked like tar. Do a search and you will find past threads on this. It happened all over the world.

 

[leabre]

my neck seal on the fusion worked fine for year and a half, about 170 dives... then one day completely unexpected it was gooey and failed. There was no pre-indication, nothing. Just happened. I replaced it. I have the ring system and bought a pair of silicone seals, after about every 5 dives they fail, fortuneately the shop has been endlessly replacing them on warranty for like 6 monthes now.

My cleaning regimine used to be religious. Now, I talc the next before a dive, hose the suit after a dive unless I'll be diving it again within the next 24 hours in which case I'll rinse it but not thoroughly. Hang it upside down. The suit is doing just fine.

 

[amajamar]

Are you guys rinsing only the outer skin or do you loosen/remove the shell to rinse the Dri Core?

 

[Brandon]

I've had my Fusion (w/ limited edition and bullet skins) for a little over two years, and have right around 250 dives on it. My latex wrist seals just went gooey and are useless, but the Viking rings are still on an intact portion of seal and keeping me dry so far. I'll send the suit out to have seal work done when I leave on a non-diving vacation in November...

After diving, I rinse the outside thoroughly with copious amounts of freshwater (warm if I can) while I'm still wearing it, then turn the suit inside out so the suit condensation can dry. I don't rinse the inside. Zipper gets waxed and cleaned every now and then. I don't bother using talc on the wrist seals, except for a little bit when the seals are new. Neck is neoprene.

I'm pulling the skin here soon when I send the suit in for service, and I'm curious to see how the dry core has fared - I've never pulled the skin off to rinse it but I suspect things are fine. The rest of the suit looks great - I had some issues with sewing quality in the limited edition skin (a known problem), but the bullet skin has held up great. I've had to patch the upper grommet holes in my EVO3 boots, which are a definite weak point in their design. Other than that, my suit still looks new and I have no leaks.

It's worth noting that my wrist seals didn't go gooey until I left for Australia / PNG and the suit wasn't dove for 6 weeks... before that it was in the water 2-3 times a week, sometimes more. This has led me to the firm belief that the best way to take care of dive gear is to dive it as often as possible. =p

My goal is for my gear to never be totally dry...

-B