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Monday, June 21, 2010

Good timing

Removing the old gasket

Last Thursday as I put on my drysuit for a practice session at St. Philips one of my wrist gaskets blew out. Bummer. I pulled the velcro tight and had a productive night anyway.

I was lucky that it happened when it did because I have an extended trip planned for next week and it would have been a scramble to get it fixed. I doubt I would have had it repaired in time.

So, I had a week. Brian suggested I have a go myself. Nothing to it he said. That's easy to say after you've done a few as I now know.

With considerable trepidation I started the job and cut the old gasket out. Set iron on medium heat to release the remaining gasket from the drysuit material. That worked good.

To make a long story short, I made a mess of it. I had it all set up nicely to glue the new gasket on but the gasket moved. Aquaseal all over my hands, sweating bullets, a prayer or two and I took it apart to dry and make a second attempt the next day. Better luck but the end product wasn't pretty.

I've learned and made up a jig to do the other gasket that I believe will work better. If so, I'll post some pictures to save some other poor soul the experience I had.

5 comments:

  1. Did you apply the iron directly to the rubber or did you use wax paper? I heard that using the wax paper prevents the rubber from sticking to the iron and making a mess of it. I used the wax paper when I was removing the backing tape on a neck gasket a few weeks ago.

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  2. I applied the iron directly on the rubber because Kokotak say not to iron on the fabric. Using just the iron allows for more precision.

    I used wax paper under the glued area to prevent it from sticking to the support I had underneath.

    Tony :-)

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  3. If you place the wax paper over the rubber while you iron it, it prevents the rubber from burning/sticking onto the iron? I guess if the iron gets too hot and melts ther rubber, it can ruin your iron.

    Using wax paper to prevent the aquaseal from sticking where it's not wanted is a great "invention", isn't it?

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  4. Your both braver than I am. My dry suit is only a year and change old, but when the time comes it will be going to Kokatat.

    PO

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  5. Once you figure out what you have to do and get the stuff in order, it's really not that hard. My first attempt was retrofitting a neoprene collar with a latex. It took a bit of fooling around but it turned out great.

    I could have brought it to a local shop and they would've charged about 35.00 labour but I figured it's useful skill to have.

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