Ultima Dry Glove System question

[insomniac]

I started getting ready for my trip to Port Hardy this evening (I arrive in two weeks). The 720's arrived earlier this week; and although I do think they will fit better; dang they were hard to install (even with my jig). Especially my wife's XL size, I could barely stretch them over the black plastic ring even without worrying about the o-ring (just for some pre-mounting strech). Thank god for my jig, but that said it doesn't work nearly as well as it does with my orange 620's. I have noooo freakin' clue how you managed to install them on the Ultima without a jig; not a chance I could pull that off.... Also, I normally wear these super thick real wool gloves with my 620's:

Dachstein Woolwear Wool Gloves 2110

But they are pretty bulky, and itchy (I wear surgical gloves under to help prevent the itch). I used to love the Xerotherms before I got these, but as soon as they get wet they never seem to dry and don't keep my hands as warm as wool. I'm going to try a pair of these this time around:

Windshield Liner

They fit better than any burton, fourth element, or other glove liner I've ever warn. They are super warm but we'll see what happens when they hit the cold pacific waters or get wet between dives. I'm excited to hear the water was up to 46 degrees, I feel like that is a couple degrees warmer than it usually is this time of year!

@MaxBottomtime was your drysuit at least dry this time around? I can't imagine you complaining about cold hands, when you dove last year with a few gallons of freezing cold water in your suit.

@Deep South Divers Ever thought of trying the o-ring on the outside method on the 720's? It works with my pure latex gloves, and I almost wonder if it might work with the 720's as well (perhaps a 20% chance)... I'm not willing to try it, but if it worked that would be so much better than the o-ring on the inside method.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

@MaxBottomtime was your drysuit at least dry this time around? I can't imagine you complaining about cold hands, when you dove last year with a few gallons of freezing cold water in your suit.

I bought a new suit a few months ago. It remained dry this time. Last year, the zipper broke with two days remaining to the trip, so I dived anyway. That was a bit chilly.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Wow... TWO undergloves AND the 720s? That's wild! Did you have a problem with bulk?

It was a bit tight, but I was able to manipulate the buttons on my camera.

 

[Deep South Divers]

@Deep South Divers Ever thought of trying the o-ring on the outside method on the 720's? It works with my pure latex gloves, and I almost wonder if it might work with the 720's as well (perhaps a 20% chance)... I'm not willing to try it, but if it worked that would be so much better than the o-ring on the inside method.

Yeah, mounting latex gloves with the o-ring on the outside works because latex gloves generally don't have a liner on the inside... That is, the INSIDE of the latex glove seals to the ring (which creates the waterproof seal) is smooth and seals just fine. Any glove with a lined interior - like a 660, 620, or 720 - needs to seal the OUTSIDE surface of the glove to the ring... Thus putting the o-ring on the inside of the glove and mounting it to the ring so that the outer surface mates with the ring.

Having said that, some people have mounted lined gloves so that the inside lays against the rings... And some have reported a resulting leak while others haven't. The truth is probably somewhere between... If there's a liner that mates directly to the ring, there's going to be some weeping of water into the glove and suit... Whether or not an individual diver considers that a "leak" or not is probably subjective, and explains why some say it works and some say it doesn't. It probably also has to do with dive style, length of dive, water temperature (in warmer waters it's probably less annoying), and how much air a diver has in the drysuit as he/she dives (divers that dive with less are probably more prone to diving with some squeeze, which would make gloves mounted this way to weep faster).

In short, no... There's no point at which I'd recommend mounting the rings directly to a lined surface, even if it's a short pile. Rings should be mounted directly to the smooth, rubbery surface of the glove. For a latex glove, that could be either side. For lined or "flocked" gloves, that's the outside surface only.

I agree that mounting gloves so that the outer side seals against the rings is a pain... But it's not that bad. It should only take a few seconds, and requires no tools. Warm gloves and o-rings that have been stretched and lubed can help a lot.

Here's a video of me doing it... It took maybe 10 seconds.


The 720 should be the easiest glove to mount from the SHOWA family... Because it's made of nitrile and is therefore the stretchiest. The PVC 660, 660ESD, and 620 are much more difficult to install because they're made of PVC. The KV660 (Kevlar-infused) I found impossible to mount because they're so stiff... But a friend has been successful getting them on Viking rings, which are apparently smaller in diameter than the Waterproof Ultimas.

 

[insomniac]

I assumed that would be the case regarding installing the 720's the wrong way. But after two days of hell; trying to get four new gloves mounted on the Ultima system, I just had to ask... (I thought there might be a chance of it working due to the liner in the 720's being a lower profile tighter weave)

As for your "easy" tool less install video; that is very subjective. I have never even come close to being able to use your method, my hands are not strong enough (and are very sensitive as I suffer from eczema). So far, I have found the 720's to be the most difficult of all gloves to install on this system. I even boiled them in hot water today out of desperation... Although I find they do have more stretch to them, I think they they have smaller diameter cuffs for whatever reason are more difficult for me to get my pvc coupler inside of. I wish I could use your method, you make it look so easy with your super human hands...

All that to say, my jig system still works with the 720's but it's much, much more difficult and error prone than with the 620's. The hardest part of the process used to be the easiest part (moving the glove/o-ring down over the top of the ultima ring system). I had six consecutive failures on this step today when trying to mount my final glove and it was very depressing having to start over that late in the process.

It's hard to describe; but the 720's "stetchy" material behaves very different than the 620s, I also have much more difficulty inserting the o-ring/coupler deep enough into the glove (which I think is also due to the cuff diameter being smaller), and it literally took me over three hours installing four gloves over the past two days. I had to take breaks in between failures as my hands hurt so bad from getting pinched by the o-ring each time I had to start over.

The silver lining in all this is, at the end of the day I came up with a new and improved way of getting the o-ring on my 5" PVC coupler jig that completely eliminates the pinching of the fingers... This means I won't need to take breaks between attempts and I'm sure after doing this enough times I'll have a higher success rate and will hopefully be able to swap out 720's in the under 2 minutes and 90% 1st attempt reliability that I currently have with my 620's. But as for now, I am going to do my best to avoid touching urchins or barnacles!

This is the original video of my jig:


And here is the video showcasing the improved / modified step in the process I came up with today, which avoids the dreaded finger pinching (sorry for the poor audio quality):


QUICK UPDATE: I wasn't confident in the install of one of my four gloves I worked on this weekend, so I decided I should just bite the bullet and remove and re-install. I first spent 10 minutes trying the @MaxBottomtime method, and I was unable to get the leverage/strength needed to do that. But the good news is I was able to install it start to finish using my jig system on my first try (it took about about 3-4 minutes). Also, I came up with a slightly modified method of transitioning from the pvc to the ultima ring that seems like it will be safer/more reliable.

 

[Marie13]

Looking forward to your review!

In latex gloves they might be a bit chilly.

In 720s they'll rock.

Water temp was 45F yesterday. I was toasty warm with the Xerotherm gloves and the standard blue surf gloves.

 

[laikabear]

Despite @Deep South Divers admonition not to mount the 720s with the O ring on the outside, I did just that (that's the Becky9 method #1 for Santi Rings I linked above). My first time I had no leaks, but when I mounted the 2nd glove, I wasn't as careful and it leaked on the first dive. I decided to give it another try because I really didn't want to do that jig method, and it had worked once! I dived with the gloves today and they are dry.

That may be a different story with the other types of ring systems, though. I'm happy with them mounted that way for now, and hope I won't have to swap them very often. I really do like the 720s over the latex gloves I was using.

@insomniac if I do ever have to use the jig I am going to use your ingenious trick with the screw and the Allen key. NICE!

 

[insomniac]

@laikabear thanks for the update, the process for installing gloves onto this system is so difficult (even with a jig) that I can totally see why you would try that method. But I think it's totally worth the pain, as all the other systems I used were either too difficult to don or leaked (or both).

As for my screw/allen key trick; I just re-mounted another glove and this time I used a screwdriver instead of an allen key and it actually worked better as it was larger and I had slightly better leverage (it went from being slightly difficult to ridiculously easy). When I have the time/energy I'll prob. upload another video (start to finish) with the 720 glove. I finally came up with a reliable way of transferring from the pvc jig to the ultima ring system.

 

[Zef]

@laikabear thanks for the update, the process for installing gloves onto this system is so difficult (even with a jig) that I can totally see why you would try that method. But I think it's totally worth the pain, as all the other systems I used were either too difficult to don or leaked (or both).

As for my screw/allen key trick; I just re-mounted another glove and this time I used a screwdriver instead of an allen key and it actually worked better as it was larger and I had slightly better leverage (it went from being slightly difficult to ridiculously easy). When I have the time/energy I'll prob. upload another video (start to finish) with the 720 glove. I finally came up with a reliable way of transferring from the pvc jig to the ultima ring system.

You might want to check out the si-tech virgo system. It is similar to the si-tech glove lock system that my wife has but designed for the same oval wrist system that the Ultima dgs system integrates with.

-Z

 

[insomniac]

@Zef I gave SiTech plenty of my money through the years and was never happy with their systems. Believe it or not; I actually LOVE the Waterproof Ultima Dry Glove System. I just happen to have an equal amount of hate for the install process of the gloves. That said, once the gloves are installed, it's a dream to use. They don / and doff easily and I've never had a leak at the seal. I ended up re-installing all four gloves this evening (once I perfected my method). Here's another video shot in the dark in the middle of the night (hence my username). It's shows start to finish (including some of my struggles) of how I built my jib and how I use it to install my gloves on the ring system.