Dry Gloves

[gripper]

Ok Being a soft southerner and sick of cold hands I have bit the bullet and purchased some dry gloves. The type that hace a ring on the glove and then a seperate ring that goes on the cuff of your drysuit. No problem until close inspection of the instructions which show two ways of attatching the ring to your suit.
So Do I
1) have the suit cuff go over the plastic ring so that when the glove is attatched air can travel into it to stop the squeeze, this does present a problem when your hand is the highest point ie. when reeling in an smb. Dont really want to have great big blown up hands just when I could do with a bit of dexterity, or
2) have the suit cuff inside the ring, the advantage being should the glove fail the drysuit integrity remains intact, the problem being will the glove get such a squeeze that I will need a vice to straighten my fingers out again.

So there are the pro`s and con`s that I can think of in short. If anyone has used these type of dry gloves then any advice on what you found best or experience or lack of the problems I have mentioned would be great.

[Scuby]

I've kept the seals inside mine, but have a little bit of silicon tubing up the seals to stop them squeezing too much at depth. Means I don't lose insulation, but its such a small gap that air doesn't rush into and out of the gloves so they don't balloon when you lift your arm or anything like that.

David

[colinicky]

Used mine yesterday out of Eastbourne, dive lasted 2 minutes ! Hit water immediate thought "think I nead to get back on boat NOW ! by the time I thought that water had passed the pinched O ring & filled my right sleeve to the shoulder This was using the outer seal but I put a piece of surgical rubber under the inner seal to allow migration of air so it might pay to use something a lot thinner under the inner in case of this .

I had checked & double checked the fit ,everything was snug to each other but it does happen ( about 50% of the time )Problem is made harder for me as I have a rebreather with front lungs which prevents a lot of movement for checking .I have used the other type of dryglove with the same sort of results but as you say at 30 metres it does squeeze alot .

[Scuby]

Ooooh, never had any leaking problems with mine in the 3 years i've had them. Only problems i've had was before I had the tubes through the seal. If you've got the seal completely intact, what can happen is that as you go down and the gloves compress, a little bit of air can bubble out through the seal into the glove, equalising it a little bit at depth. However, as you ascend that air cannot go back the other way, and many times I was ascending and was totally unable to use by hands since the air in my gloves had expanded so much it was like having a balloon on the end of my hands. When I pulled them off on the surface (needed to to inflate my BC and get back up ladders or whatever) I generally soaked the inside of the glove (just through not holding them out of the water enough)... which made the next dive rather soggy!

With the tubes in though, i've never had any problems. If its not sealing correctly though its worth trying to work out why. I always check mine are fully pushed on all the way around before jumping in, but once on i've never had one pop off.

David

[dlegros]

Maintain an inner seal in case of a glove failure, wear something under the wrist seal of your suit - like a liner glove for warmth and to allow equalisation.

HTH

Dom

[Letz]

I am also very keen to appreciate the 'correct' use of dry gloves.

I have a Polar Bears dry suit with the cuff ring 'built in'. The gloves don't have the ring so I'm not trying the astronaught type believing the advantage to be retaining a latex seal in the event of the glove rupturing.

I tried one hand in Wraysbury with the non-ringed glove latex part over the drysuit ring and a piece of bungee for equalisation ( I was advised that tubing would squash)

I too found myself aborting the dive soon as the cold (5 C) water crept further up my arm. I think my error was to just pull the tight latex over the cuff ring with no further large O ring. Would this be correct ?

Also, given my understanding that the benefits of this sytem is still having the drysuit latex wrist seal am I losing that benefit by inserting something to add equalisation ? I spoke to another diver recently who just goes for the squeeze and reckons they can use their fingers better that way anyway.

[recurve]

Originally Posted by dlegros

Maintain an inner seal in case of a glove failure, wear something under the wrist seal of your suit - like a liner glove for warmth and to allow equalisation.

HTH

Dom

And don't bother with a second dive if the seal doesn't work

[Scuby]

The tubing *does* squash, and allows air to migrate very slowly. Enough to keep the glove roughly equalised, but without allowing any sudden movements of air or floods of water should the glove leak.

And of course, if the glove does leak then of course the tubing isn't such a good idea, but then if your hand is wet then you might as well remove the glove anyway, and you can pull the tube out - if you do it when you first notice you shouldn't get a wet arm, and if you stick the glove back on they can actually be pretty warm even when completely soaked (like a wet glove, essentially).

That said, they still shouldn't leak in the first place. If your gloves have holes in then you can replace (on the ring systems) the actual glove bit for £3-£4 per pair, so no reason not to. I even saw some in Homebase recently, although they were about £9 I think.

David

[kevFISH]

Blimey you great jessy - you'll be buying an argon cylinder next Late autumn here and still 18 degrees in the water!!

Have you managed to find anyone new to annoy (sorry visit) in the city yet? Or is Gordon having to deal with you all day???

[Gareth Burrows]

I use 4mm Fish tank Air hose under the wrist seal to equalise the gloves. Works a treat. When the damn things don't leak