Non smelly material for hood and gloves?

[diverbrian]

This question will sound interesting to say the least.

I dive dry with wet gloves and a neoprene hood.

I want to keep the hood and gloves separate from the drysuit. The reason being is that I am somewhat superstitious and have seen too many leaks in attached drygloves that wind up leading directly into the suit. This makes for uncomfortable decompression time.

So, I am asking if anyone has heard of a non-smelly alternative to neoprene in exposure suit insulation. As we know, wet neoprene makes a unique smell and does not dry out quickly.

 

[Charlie99]

I don't pee into my hood and gloves, so they've never had that unique smell.

YMMV.

 

[Teamcasa]

Clean them with Woolite, no funny smells.

 

[AUTiger]

I like the smell of neoprene! Its the smell of diving! Urine, on the other hand, not so much - although thats not really an issue with a dry suit or hoods in general.

You can configure you dry gloves to still leave you a latex wrist seal in addition to having your hands stay dry in the glove. That is how I configure mine. I could leave the dry gloves off, put on wet gloves, and still have my wrist seal. This is with an OS ring mounted dryglove setup.

Right now, I still have a piece of surgical tubing through the wrist seal to allow the gloves and suit to equalize, avoiding hand squeeze. The glove instructions say that hand squeeze should not be an issue at 100ft or less, but I haven't tried it without the tubing.

I don't have a solution for your hood issue. If you just hate the smell of neoprene, then that's probably a problem. Don't put your hood on until right before you get in the water. I can't smell anything in the water.

David

 

[ClayJar]

You can configure you dry gloves to still leave you a latex wrist seal in addition to having your hands stay dry in the glove. That is how I configure mine. I could leave the dry gloves off, put on wet gloves, and still have my wrist seal. This is with an OS ring mounted dryglove setup.

I have SI Tech rings, which also mount to the intact wrist seals. I usually dive dry-handed, but occasionally I'll leave the gloves off while playing cards or something.

Right now, I still have a piece of surgical tubing through the wrist seal to allow the gloves and suit to equalize, avoiding hand squeeze. The glove instructions say that hand squeeze should not be an issue at 100ft or less, but I haven't tried it without the tubing.

I bought a pair of extra-wide neon orange shoelaces from Walmart, cut them each into six pieces, and lighter-melted the ends. They're like narrow webbing, but *much* softer, and the wide-and-thin profile makes them virtually disappear while maintaining excellent through-flow. I bought the blaze orange ones, as they're very easy to see, and the wide textured weave of the shoelace material seems much easier to grab when you have a glove flood and want to pull it out with your still-dry hand. (Yes, I've tried that, just to see.)

I don't care what instructions may say, glove squeeze is uncomfortable. It also reduces my range of movement. On top of that, without the equalization path, I wouldn't be able to hold a hand up behind me to inflate the glove if my hand gets cold. Nope, I think I'll discount the "don't need it" advice just like I discount the drysuit versus wing for buoyancy advice. :biggrin: