Undersuits!!

[dbulmer]

Matthew,
Just an aside I'm 5ft 10 and 175 pounds. Do you put air in your suit to control buoyancy? I don't and get colder as a result but I have finer control of my buoyancy. I was just thinking aloud that might be one reason - another could be hands and feet protection. Generally my core feels warm enough but my hands specifically get cold - in many cases if your body core is not warm enough it's the extremities which are first to get cold.

That said, some individuals tolerate cold better than others in that they cool at the same rate but just don't feel it in the same way as others.

 

[cummings66]

No, I use very little air in the drysuit. I use the BC for buoyancy control. I use a dryglove and I will say the last dive I had in 36 degree water I managed to lose the feeling in my thumbs, however I was comfortable elsewhere.

I have tried adding air to the suit and useing it for buoyancy control and it works fine but I don't like the floppy foot feeling I get due to the air that ends up in the boot plus that's a good indicator that I've got too much air in the suit. I normally dive with a bit of a squeeze, I don't get rid of the feeling as some do.

You know this is the hardest part of drysuit diving to explain, how much squeeze do you use? You use enough to be comfortable, but then you ask how much is that?

It's kind of like asking, how thick of a wetsuit do I need. Again, it's all relative and hard to describe how well something works...

 

[dbulmer]

I use 5mm gloves rather than drygloves and usually it's the hands that feel the cold rather than my body - it's never my feet. As a result I've got into the habit of clenching my fists and it seems to be helping keeping the cold at bay.

 

[cummings66]

My fingers got so cold I couldn't get my Octo clipped back up. I couldn't feel a thing and finally said to heck with it, let it drag.

The rest of me was just fine, I just need a bit thicker liner under the glove is all. It's odd though because I've never had a cold hand before. Reminds me, I best get to the store and find one, I hope to dive Sunday and it's probably going to be just as cold. I'm such a wimp, I can dive a 200 gr undergarment and be comfy, but my hands turn into Ice cubes.

 

[charlieo]

For cold hands this was the solution for both my wife and I:https://www.divetank.com/gear/product.php?id=234
For overall cold I have been experimenting with Argon for dry suit inflation. The Argon rig is a PITA but a warm PITA. Good Luck.

 

[cummings66]

What's different on those dry gloves vs the Viking dry gloves I use now? I can't tell if it's a thicker rubber with maybe some sort of built in neoprene layer?

At any rate mine are just thin rubber gloves that you wear a standard liner under for warmth, it's a matter of choosing the proper liner. I think why I got cold was I dove deeper than normal and stayed down longer and the fingers had more squeeze on them because I didn't raise the arms up enough to get air in it. I did it later on but it was too late.

So tell me more about the glove, the pic just doesn't help much.