hollywood703
Contributor
For anyone looking to replace your neck seal on your drysuit but have been nervous to do so, this is for you. I was in the same situation, and the repair shop said it would be 6-8 weeks to get it back as they ship out. I want to get a few more dives in this year so I decided to do it myself. In retrospect it was way easier than I had it in my mind. The biggest headache was removing the old latex seal as my old one disintegrated so I needed to remove it all the way down to the original material. This was tedious and time consuming to not damage the suit. I ordered the contact cement and aqua seal from Dive Right in scuba and they were very helpful in the process for my specific suit. After I was satisfied that the old seal was removed and the old glue was very minimal I started the process of the new quick neck install. The process would be the same for a new latex seal as well. I did 3 coats on each piece waiting 15 minutes between coats. After the last coat I waited the 5 minutes and slowly lined up the 2 pieces. I had layed out the suit so the neck area was perfectly flat making the install a lot easier. I started at the front of the neck and worked my way around pressing firmly and overlapping pressure until I was all the way around. I then went around again with heavy pressure to ensure a good bond. I allowed it to cure 24 hours untouched, I had some light separation spots around a few of the very edges where I didn't have glue enough at the edges but this was corrected with the edge being completely sealed with Aqua seal FD. I chose not to use the Cutol as I had the time to let it cure properly and I wanted it to be more pliable when finished. I did a leak test and found no air leaks when pressurized so am good to go. Although I could have taped off the aqua seal to have a more uniform overlap, it is purely cosmetic and happy with how it turned out. The fish wont mind anyway.
I spent around $30 in the cement/glue and still have enough to do atleast 2 more seals if needed. The price for the install via a shop was $130 plus shipping costs. I believe if you have some patience that anyone can do this themselves. If you want to do it yourselves, I do recommend getting your stuff from Dive Right In Scuba as you can contact their repair team and they will tell you the exact process they would use for your type of material.
I spent around $30 in the cement/glue and still have enough to do atleast 2 more seals if needed. The price for the install via a shop was $130 plus shipping costs. I believe if you have some patience that anyone can do this themselves. If you want to do it yourselves, I do recommend getting your stuff from Dive Right In Scuba as you can contact their repair team and they will tell you the exact process they would use for your type of material.
