Dry glove recommendations?? Anyone??

Hi -

We're booking a dive trip in Alaska for next year - I typically dive a drysuit with 5 mm gloves or (when the water temp drops below 52) 7 mm mitts. I was thinking I might have to go to dry gloves for Alaska... I get pretty cold when the temps hit 50! I have 2 different DUI drysuits, both have zipseals at the wrists. Has anyone tried the new high-dexterity DUI gloves?

Thanks!!

Allison

I've always preferred OS Systems dry gloves in the past because their rings system was the lowest profile I have seen,and I really don't like getting geared up with the gloves in place. Their glove is just barely adequate (like a latex dishwashing glove), though.

I just ordered the Compressed Neo Dry gloves from DUI, and will let you know how those work on April 15 or so when I get back from Port Hardy.

I saw those on a boat a few weeks ago - they look super warm... (Truth is, I guess once you go to 7 mm mitts, you have lost so much dexterity it is almost pointless to worry about it anymore...I have hardly had my camera in warm water at all, so that would probably be more foreign to me at this point..) I am actually leaning towards Diving Concepts, since they have separate seals - you can poke a hole in the glove and not wind up with a flood anywhere but in the glove... Would love to hear what you think about the compressed neo, Ryan - thanks. Have a blast in Vancouver!

I'm using a new system, really a very old one, recommended by our DSO at the Sea Aquarium. They are the Sitex (SI) rings used by Viking. They are simply a sort of flexible hard rubber ring system with a lip held into the suit (not glued) that long gloves with a inserted band go over. They are an option on DUI suits.

Don't buy the Viking gloves, which are too short. I bought sort of heavy $7 dishwashing gloves and you can even just use orange thin gloves for fine work. There are no hard rings to lock or leak. It took a bit to learn how to snap them on yourself, but now I have no problem.

Jack

I've used a couple of different dry glove systems over the years, both the SiTek and the DUI dry gloves with Zip Seals. I definitely preferred the Zip Seal system over the Sitek...those were a real PIA.

You guys are talking about Si-Tech, right?

I've liked the Si-Tech gloves because they allow you to preserve the interior wrist seal, and allow any number of rubber glove choices with any liner. Even dishwasher gloves, as talked about in a previous thread. And I don't see how one can have trouble with the rings - they're fairly foolproof and rugged...

Hi,

I use a cuff ring dry glove system by Blue Point-which is no longer available, but is very similar to the Si-Tech system.

Couple of points though-get your Drysuit repairer to fit an extra set of wrist seal to your suit. This allows you to have an interior seal in the event of a leak, as a well as the outer seal that fits into the cuff rings.

I would avoid any dry glove made of neoprene for much the same reason that I would avoid the suits made of it! Relatively stiff, insensitive and for little or no actual thermal benefit. I have seen the DUI neoprene version, and a good friend has used them , and ending up binning them they were so bad!

Zip seals are a pain for gloves-you cannot remove/replace them at the surface to check personal/camera gear, and you have no optons on limiting floods if the glove gets holed.

The gloves supplied with SI tech tend to have a loose liner-although this dries fast, it is a pain to get the gloves on with, and make the whole system less dextrous. Ideally replace them with work gloves that have a built in fleecy thermal layer attached to the glove. You can replace the actual glove and retain the rings with Si Techs again you woud need a whole new pair from DUI.

Rereading the above, it sound a a bit dogmatic-sorry-just my findings from the past few years!

All the best

Adam

Something else to consider. Dry gloves but also wrist seals. If you get a glove leak it won't be open to the whole suit. To vent the gloves run a small piece of tubing under the wrist seal. No personal experience with this (a neoprene glove guy = burr) but know several others that like this system. Someone in a cold water group always seems to get a dry glove leak. This will help minimize the damage.

Before I went to Alaska two years ago the Si-tech system was recommend. It is a great system and close to fool proof. Leave the wrist seal so you have protection incase the glove leaks.

Much better than the diving concepts system I used before.

I used to use the Diving Concepts ring system for drygloves, what a PITA to install....only completed after the proper combination of swear words to get the rings to cooperate, resulting in sore fingers for days.

I have just installed the DUI SI-Tech system, and give them two thumbs up, especially for ease of installation. I am still trying to figure out the best liners for my tiny paws.

On a side note, I attempted 5mm wetgloves before I installed the SI-Tech rings on my new latex wrist seals, what a disaster! My fingers were numb for hours after the dive, which is the reason I started wearing drygloves years ago when I started cold water diving. Also, I had zero control over my camera, Nikon D200 with Aquatica housing and Ikelite DS-125 strobes. The water temp is at 45 degrees in Puget Sound, and probably even colder in Alaska.

Good Luck,

Kathryn

The OS Systems Rings do preserve the wrist seal. They are also lower profile than Si-Tech, and are easier in my opinion to attach after getting geared up.

I actually was able to assemble the OS Systems ring on a Zip Seal, leaving me with field repair ability and warm hands. It took a long time to do, though.

I'm not worried about a leaking from the compressed neoprene as it is extremely durable. I am a bit worried about dexterity though.

Unbelievable - almost unanimous for the Si-Tech system here - my local listserve was almost unanimous for the DUI smurfy blue (heavy duty) gloves with the water dam.

I think my husband has the Si-Tech stuff sitting in the garage (it's a ring system he got with his drysuit several years ago, and the pictures match up...) - he hardly even wears wet gloves at all locally - maybe I'll give them a try.

At any rate, this has become a moot point - I was given the wrong dates for Alaska - 2009 (or 2011) instead of 2010. The 2009 date departs the day we get back from 3 weeks in Indonesia, so my boss might not appreciate my doing that...looks like I'll have a few years to figure it all out...maybe I'll hop the wetpixel trip in 2011! (I can talk about this now after being traumatized and weepy over my dashed hopes all night). Thanks so much to all of you for your input - very much appreciated.

Hi -

 

We're booking a dive trip in Alaska for next year - I typically dive a drysuit with 5 mm gloves or (when the water temp drops below 52) 7 mm mitts. I was thinking I might have to go to dry gloves for Alaska... I get pretty cold when the temps hit 50! I have 2 different DUI drysuits, both have zipseals at the wrists. Has anyone tried the new high-dexterity DUI gloves?

Thanks!!

 

Allison

I use Diving concepts attached to a zip seal with an inner latex seal and love this solution.

you can take gloves off on surface, and also use wet if you want (w/out removing the entire zip attachment)

here's the email I send my dive buddies, when they ask where to get glove like my wife & I have used for the last couple years.

weist seal is intact, so you can switch back to wet gloves if you need to. I just put the liners on, then the suit, with the wrist seal sitting on top of the liner, this lets the air (slowly) equalize between glove & suit.

if you get a leak, take the gove off, & pull the liner from under the seal, put the glove back on. Some people use straws etc to equalize, but i've never tried that option.

only had 1 flood, after the glove was cut somehow... 2 min later, new glove installed, and back in business (wrung the water out of the liner, and used it on the 45 min dive, still warm)

http://comdive.com/ringkits.html is the place for the Viking dry gloves .. the bayonet system is the one you want. Don’t bother ordering with any gloves, just the basic kit.. tell him you were referred from decostop, might get a better price.

Then get atlas 620 gloves http://www.go2marine.com/product.do?no=34379F

http://www.campmor.com/outdoor/gear/Product___92853 are the gloves we really like.

The latest SiTech glove system has a rotating mount that makes donning very much more straightforward. Here's a review that I did for Diver Mag (UK). It will be on www.divernet.com at the beginning of April.

Si Tech Glove Lock

I admit to being one of those people that gets a pile of bits from Ikea, follows the instructions implicitly, and still ends up with a wardrobe the shelves upside-down. With this in mind, it was with some trepidation that I fitted the Si Tech Glove Lock system for use with dry gloves to my otherwise excellent Aquion drysuit.

I say it’s excellent because it has always kept me perfectly dry and I was aware of the risk I was taking by tampering with its watertight integrity. In fact I needn’t have worried because I wasn’t.

This Glove Lock system from the Swedish manufacturer Si Tech, is fitted to the latex wrist seals of the drysuit in such a way as to leave them completely functional. You slide the appropriate size ‘spanner ’ ring down (several colour-coded sizes are supplied to use with different thicknesses of material) through the sleeve of the drysuit and squeeze it up inside the wrist seal, stretching it evenly round the ring as you go. The drysuit-fitting half of the Glove Lock system squeezes on to it. Naturally it involves a bit of effort but the SiTech instructions tell you to test for a good fit by pulling on the ring against the suit sleeve.

SiTech supplied me with a set of heavy-duty PVC gloves and these are fitted in a similar way by choosing the right size ‘spanner’ ring and forcing the glove ring into it, being sure that the fit is even all round and that there are no wrinkles. Again, you test for a good fit by pulling the ring against the glove. All well and good, and after a short time trying to make head or tails of the rather brief Ikea-like fitting instructions I managed to get everything neatly assembled and to my liking.

So what is the advantage over other dry glove ring systems? The suit is donned as normal with some soft fluffy liner gloves. Immediately before diving, the dry gloves are put on. The big difference is that they are not limited in the way the mounting-ring has been fitted because you can rotate them to suit the orientation of your hands. A big rubber-covered locking ring rotates about the suit ring to keep the gloves in place and a captive O-ring keeps the joint watertight.

I found I still needed help fitting the second glove just as I have done with every other dryglove system I’ve used. I found that the rubber covered locking ring was not as easy to rotate as the one that Stig, the boss of Si Tech, had demonstrated to me previously. The captive O-ring probably needed lubricating with silicone grease but I was damned if I could get either of the drysuit half of the rings apart to get access. I was too frightened of breaking them.

Something that everyone who uses dry gloves with their own wrist seal soon discovers is that under the pressure of depth the glove is crushed up and with it the insulation of the liner glove. Your hands may stay dry but they soon get cold. Hands in dry gloves that use the same internal air-volume as the rest of the suit can be kept warm by holding an arm up and letting air migrate.

Some of you will be suspicious of this way of doing things because, should you damage your gloves, your drysuit will gradually fill with water – another way to get cold quickly – so it’s not for wreckers or anyone likely to badly tear a glove.

Deeply suspicious of my own ability to fit anything to a drysuit and still stay dry when submerged, it suited me to leave the drysuit wrist seals intact and functioning. This in effect meant that the dry gloves had their own internal air space with the resultant loss of insulation at depth. (See picture.) Not only that but if I wasn’t careful the gloves would balloon with too much air in them to begin with, making me feel like I had so little dexterity I could hardly handle my pressure gauge.

Then Jimbob suggested I put the woolly liner gloves on before pushing my hands down the sleeves of my suit so that water-sealing ability of the inner wrist seals was compromised. That meant that the gloves became part of the same volume of air as the rest of the suit. If I was to accidentally puncture a glove I could simply pull it off so that the wrist seal settled back against my skin, sacrificing my hand’s insulation in order to mitigate the effect of a possible flood. It didn’t make the seals very tight on my wrists as I might have expected and I opted to use the gloves and the Glove Lock system this way in future. I’m not too old to learn something new.

Hi -

 

We're booking a dive trip in Alaska for next year - I typically dive a drysuit with 5 mm gloves or (when the water temp drops below 52) 7 mm mitts. I was thinking I might have to go to dry gloves for Alaska... I get pretty cold when the temps hit 50! I have 2 different DUI drysuits, both have zipseals at the wrists. Has anyone tried the new high-dexterity DUI gloves?

Thanks!!

 

Allison

I´m unsure if you are referring to the new DUI ZipZeals or something else. I have not personally used the ZipZeals but a number of divers in my team use this system and they are very happy with it. But ´spensive though... but a "lifesaver" when you rip a zeal.

I´ve been using the ringless Sitech gloves for the past two years, and have never had a leak.

The latest SiTech glove system has a rotating mount that makes donning very much more straightforward. Here's a review that I did for Diver Mag (UK). It will be on www.divernet.com at the beginning of April.

 

Here you go:-

 

http://www.divernet.com/Diving_Gear/diver_...glove_lock.html

Just tried the compressed neoprene gloves, and I'm going back to OS Systems for my right hand at the moment to regain dexterity.

If you are going to go for the system that connects to your dry suit a good tip is to paint the fingertips of the gloves (primarily the fingerprint are) with neoprene repair liquid.

This will help prevent little nicks and cuts that could lead to very cold hands. No matter how careful you are you can easily damage the gloves, especially if diving in and around wrcks and using shot lines.

Alternatively, I have moved away from dry gloves several years ago, and dived quite happily in Iceland at 1 degree centigrade water temp using Posidon 7mm gloves.

I found they still gave enough dexterity to work cameras etc and have succesfully used them on trimix dives 100m+ with video equipment.

A friend picked me up some of the compressed neoprene gloves (DUI). Like Ryan, I went back to my old system. We do still have a set of the SI Tech gloves in our garage, so that'll be next - I have a friend who just got back from Antarctica and had success with the Diving Concepts gloves (which sound like the ringless SI Techs), so I have a few options before I have to blow a bunch of cash on DUI...not that I don't love my DUI gear, but I have some camera stuff I'd rather buy.

Hogglet, good tip on the neoprene repair liquid! I have pretty skinny little fingers, though, and I can assure you, I will definitely be wanting dry gloves. I can do semi-dry mitts in a pinch (I have the Atlan 7 mms), but my hands will definitely be my limiting factor if the water drops under 50 degrees - we moved here from Boston, and I used to have to warm my hands before I could get my gear off.