neonstingray
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Hey everyone,
So last year I posted this thread about a new condition but old CF200 I picked up on ebay for $300. I decided to make a new thread chronicling the repairs and updates I've made to the suit since buying it. Hopefully this will serve as a guide of things to consider for people buying used suits and also provide some info for people attempting to make their own repairs or upgrades without prior experience.
Here's the thread where I first mentioned the purchase of the suit:
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/exposure-suits/453113-advice-cf200-deal-i-think-i-made-out-pic.html
You can see it looks brand new. It felt brand new. I took it home to try in my pool. The suit came with the original neoprene wrist and neck seals. The seals were in great condition, but weren't prepared to seal against my Avatar-build. In the pool, I had the dreaded neck trickle of water. I decided I could deal with it until changing out the seals. I have the world's smallest bladder though, and knew from the start I'd be adding a p-valve. I bought the new-style Dive Rite delrin p-valve along with the appropriately sized leather punch from Amazon. I knew one of the claims to fame of the CF200 was the durability, though once I had it in my hands it didn't feel as bullet-proof as I was expecting. I picked the location for the valve, put the block of wood behind it, rested the hole punch on the suit and gave it a light whack with a hammer. Nothing. I gave it a harder whack. It left an imprint on the surface of the suit. Ok, I was sold. I started beating until the leather punch finally got all the way through the suit. I ran a couple coats of Aquaseal around the hole, and placed the two rubber washers on either side. The Dive Rite instructions said to use a 1/2" bolt to clamp the rubber gaskets together, and not the valve itself, so that you'd be able to remove the valve later if need be. I only had a 1/4" bolt and two large metal washers, which I thought would be fine, but even then the rubber gaskets started to slide on the layer of Aquaseal. At that point I decided to screw the valve itself down onto the gaskets, as a good seal was more important to me than risking getting some Aquaseal in the threads and preventing a easy removal later.
So off I went on a Boston dive with the suit for the first time. I came out of the water soaked, albeit still warmer than my 7mm wetsuit buddies. Not only did the neck seal leak down the back of my neck, but the wrist seals weren't very snug. I wore neoprene gloves with the wrist of the glove overlapping the wrist seal. When I'd squeeze my hand, the water in the palm of the glove would get pumped into the neoprene wrist seal and into the suit. Ok, so it looked like I'd be replacing all the seals.
I decided to go with traditional latex seals on the wrist and the Si-tech Necktite neck seal ring. I could tell that the Necktite ring was going to be a difficult install, especially since the suit had a neoprene neck seal to begin with. The original neoprene neck and wrist seals were sewn into the suit, with a layer of Aqualseal on the inside seam. I purchased the seals from Diverightinscuba.com, and Mike was wonderful. He recommended sending the suit to them to do the installs, but gave me guidance over email for installing it myself. If I wasn't a student on a tight budget I would have happily had him do the install, but I decided to take on the endeavor myself. I cut the upper part of the neck seal off, then made successively larger cuts until the opening matched the size of the Necktite ring.
I put the Necktite ring on an upside down bucket, then opened the container of contact cement. Oh no. That smell. I know that smell... I'm a pretty serious DIY'er. And serious DIY'ers know that despite the satisfaction of having done something and done it well, there are some things you decide once is enough and swear off to never deal with again. For me, one of those things was laminating wood, like how laminate counter-tops are installed. I just hated working with contact cement so much I get upset thinking about it. And here it was again. My old nemesis.
Since I'm a dental student at the Tufts medical center in downtown Boston, I live in a highrise apartment building. That means all my diy efforts are done in my bathroom. Working with something like contact cement in a bathroom is a nightmare. If you're going to do things like this I highly recommend finding a suitable location to work in.
So I started painting the layers of contact cement onto both the top of the Necktite ring and inside of the drysuit. After 4 layers on each, and barely tacky, I pressed the suit opening down onto the ring. There is one stitched and glued shoulder seam in the suit that runs very close to the neck opening. The stiffness of this seam right next to the neck opening later started to make the edge of the suit lift from the edge of the Necktite ring, but this was easily handled by a bead of Aquaseal around the inner and outer edges of where the suit met the ring.
So all was well with the neck seal. Then I had to tackle the wrist seals. As I mentioned, the original neoprene seals were stitched and Aquasealed to the sleeves, so I couldn't simply remove them the way you'd remove latex seals. I called DUI, figuring I'd ask if there was some special DUI-way they'd replace the neoprene seals with the latex ones. The rep I spoke with on the phone assured me they didn't do anything special, and would simply cut the ends off and glue the latex seals on. So I did that. I cut the neoprene seals about 1 inch short of where the stitching was, and slid a bottle into the sleeve. I again did about 4 coats of cement on the sleeve and inside the seal, and stretched the wrist seal onto sleeve. All was good.
So off to my cavern course at Ginnie...
Since I was concerned about my trim and buoyancy I dove a little shrink-wrapped, with minimal air in the suit so I wouldn't have to worry about managing it while focusing on other things. After the dives I was still coming up wet, but the new seals felt great and certainly didn't feel like any water was getting past them. Also, the wetness seemed to be mostly on my left arm and chest. And the more I used the dump valve trying to get all the air out, the wetter I got. Also, the valve still didn't really auto-dump. I hadn't realized the valve didn't auto-dump before since air escaped from my seals before the valve could even let it out.
When I got home I plugged the openings of the suit and inflated it. A day later it was still inflated, even with the valve set to open. So it wasn't a leak somewhere else in the suit. I contacted Bob3 on here, who suggested I go with the Si-tech Hazmat valve which should allow me to dive a bit more shrink-wrapped without letting water into the suit, as it is a double valve. That was the end of this past summer, so I never actually got around to getting the valve. I'll be installing it for this coming season.
So yes, I've spent a couple hundred more on the suit on top of the original $300, but it's still significantly less than I would have spent on a suit with the same features. I'm very happy with the Si-Tech Necktite silicone seal. The retaining ring hasn't interfered at all with my bp/w as some have wondered on other threads. The Dive Rite P-valve has also performed flawlessly. I again want to think Mike at DiveRightInScuba for his perfect customer service. I hope he's in business for many years to come. I also was surprised by DUI's willingness to assist me over the phone instead of simply telling me I'd have to mail the suit to them to have them do it some special DUI-way.
If anyone has any questions about doing these kinds of repairs or mods to a CF200, let me know!
Best,
Austin
So last year I posted this thread about a new condition but old CF200 I picked up on ebay for $300. I decided to make a new thread chronicling the repairs and updates I've made to the suit since buying it. Hopefully this will serve as a guide of things to consider for people buying used suits and also provide some info for people attempting to make their own repairs or upgrades without prior experience.
Here's the thread where I first mentioned the purchase of the suit:
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/exposure-suits/453113-advice-cf200-deal-i-think-i-made-out-pic.html
You can see it looks brand new. It felt brand new. I took it home to try in my pool. The suit came with the original neoprene wrist and neck seals. The seals were in great condition, but weren't prepared to seal against my Avatar-build. In the pool, I had the dreaded neck trickle of water. I decided I could deal with it until changing out the seals. I have the world's smallest bladder though, and knew from the start I'd be adding a p-valve. I bought the new-style Dive Rite delrin p-valve along with the appropriately sized leather punch from Amazon. I knew one of the claims to fame of the CF200 was the durability, though once I had it in my hands it didn't feel as bullet-proof as I was expecting. I picked the location for the valve, put the block of wood behind it, rested the hole punch on the suit and gave it a light whack with a hammer. Nothing. I gave it a harder whack. It left an imprint on the surface of the suit. Ok, I was sold. I started beating until the leather punch finally got all the way through the suit. I ran a couple coats of Aquaseal around the hole, and placed the two rubber washers on either side. The Dive Rite instructions said to use a 1/2" bolt to clamp the rubber gaskets together, and not the valve itself, so that you'd be able to remove the valve later if need be. I only had a 1/4" bolt and two large metal washers, which I thought would be fine, but even then the rubber gaskets started to slide on the layer of Aquaseal. At that point I decided to screw the valve itself down onto the gaskets, as a good seal was more important to me than risking getting some Aquaseal in the threads and preventing a easy removal later.
So off I went on a Boston dive with the suit for the first time. I came out of the water soaked, albeit still warmer than my 7mm wetsuit buddies. Not only did the neck seal leak down the back of my neck, but the wrist seals weren't very snug. I wore neoprene gloves with the wrist of the glove overlapping the wrist seal. When I'd squeeze my hand, the water in the palm of the glove would get pumped into the neoprene wrist seal and into the suit. Ok, so it looked like I'd be replacing all the seals.
I decided to go with traditional latex seals on the wrist and the Si-tech Necktite neck seal ring. I could tell that the Necktite ring was going to be a difficult install, especially since the suit had a neoprene neck seal to begin with. The original neoprene neck and wrist seals were sewn into the suit, with a layer of Aqualseal on the inside seam. I purchased the seals from Diverightinscuba.com, and Mike was wonderful. He recommended sending the suit to them to do the installs, but gave me guidance over email for installing it myself. If I wasn't a student on a tight budget I would have happily had him do the install, but I decided to take on the endeavor myself. I cut the upper part of the neck seal off, then made successively larger cuts until the opening matched the size of the Necktite ring.
I put the Necktite ring on an upside down bucket, then opened the container of contact cement. Oh no. That smell. I know that smell... I'm a pretty serious DIY'er. And serious DIY'ers know that despite the satisfaction of having done something and done it well, there are some things you decide once is enough and swear off to never deal with again. For me, one of those things was laminating wood, like how laminate counter-tops are installed. I just hated working with contact cement so much I get upset thinking about it. And here it was again. My old nemesis.
Since I'm a dental student at the Tufts medical center in downtown Boston, I live in a highrise apartment building. That means all my diy efforts are done in my bathroom. Working with something like contact cement in a bathroom is a nightmare. If you're going to do things like this I highly recommend finding a suitable location to work in.
So I started painting the layers of contact cement onto both the top of the Necktite ring and inside of the drysuit. After 4 layers on each, and barely tacky, I pressed the suit opening down onto the ring. There is one stitched and glued shoulder seam in the suit that runs very close to the neck opening. The stiffness of this seam right next to the neck opening later started to make the edge of the suit lift from the edge of the Necktite ring, but this was easily handled by a bead of Aquaseal around the inner and outer edges of where the suit met the ring.
So all was well with the neck seal. Then I had to tackle the wrist seals. As I mentioned, the original neoprene seals were stitched and Aquasealed to the sleeves, so I couldn't simply remove them the way you'd remove latex seals. I called DUI, figuring I'd ask if there was some special DUI-way they'd replace the neoprene seals with the latex ones. The rep I spoke with on the phone assured me they didn't do anything special, and would simply cut the ends off and glue the latex seals on. So I did that. I cut the neoprene seals about 1 inch short of where the stitching was, and slid a bottle into the sleeve. I again did about 4 coats of cement on the sleeve and inside the seal, and stretched the wrist seal onto sleeve. All was good.
So off to my cavern course at Ginnie...
Since I was concerned about my trim and buoyancy I dove a little shrink-wrapped, with minimal air in the suit so I wouldn't have to worry about managing it while focusing on other things. After the dives I was still coming up wet, but the new seals felt great and certainly didn't feel like any water was getting past them. Also, the wetness seemed to be mostly on my left arm and chest. And the more I used the dump valve trying to get all the air out, the wetter I got. Also, the valve still didn't really auto-dump. I hadn't realized the valve didn't auto-dump before since air escaped from my seals before the valve could even let it out.
When I got home I plugged the openings of the suit and inflated it. A day later it was still inflated, even with the valve set to open. So it wasn't a leak somewhere else in the suit. I contacted Bob3 on here, who suggested I go with the Si-tech Hazmat valve which should allow me to dive a bit more shrink-wrapped without letting water into the suit, as it is a double valve. That was the end of this past summer, so I never actually got around to getting the valve. I'll be installing it for this coming season.
So yes, I've spent a couple hundred more on the suit on top of the original $300, but it's still significantly less than I would have spent on a suit with the same features. I'm very happy with the Si-Tech Necktite silicone seal. The retaining ring hasn't interfered at all with my bp/w as some have wondered on other threads. The Dive Rite P-valve has also performed flawlessly. I again want to think Mike at DiveRightInScuba for his perfect customer service. I hope he's in business for many years to come. I also was surprised by DUI's willingness to assist me over the phone instead of simply telling me I'd have to mail the suit to them to have them do it some special DUI-way.
If anyone has any questions about doing these kinds of repairs or mods to a CF200, let me know!
Best,
Austin
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