Australian Drysuit Repairs

After losing 30 Kgs and intending to lose another 10 kgs, Chris came to me asking if I could take in his 1 year old Fourth Element Aquanaut. I spent that night thinking about how, if at all, I could do it. After coming up with a considered plan I called him back and asked him to come into the workshop where I could mark up the suit with chalk and take a few measurements. He also asked if I could fit a P-Zip for convenience while I had the suit in the workshop. 2 weeks later I had the suit completed and dispatched back to him with 20cm removed from around the waist. A week later he received it in the post and was doing a 3 hour dive, dry and in comfort!

🍾It's a New Year and we've published a new website.🎉 You can check it out here.Happy New Year to everyone!https://www.australiandrysuitrepairs.au/

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We recently received a Fourth Element Hydra neoprene suit in the workshop for a replacement latex seal which had torn. The customer had the original neoprene neck seal converted to a latex seal at another repair centre and was very unhappy with the way it had been done and the resulting aesthetics of the suit. The conversion wasn't the way we would have done it, so we suggested adding a warm neck collar over the replaced latex seal to get the suit looking good again. The customer was very pleased to do so.

New stocks of Light Monkey Ti**le P-valves have arrived. We haven't yet come across a drysuit these can't be fitted to. Prove us wrong?

One of my very recent repairs got a major pressure test, in China. Someone's been having some first class adventures, that's for sure.

Drysuit Inflator Arm (Catch) Placement

Ryan-K-Explorer started a conversation recently regarding placement options for a drysuit inflator other than the standard chest configuration. Primarily he wanted to be able to keep his chest free of encumbrances so he could squeeze through low, tight “dry” restrictions between sumps without getting the inflator hung up, digging into his sternum or packing the inflator button with mud and jamming it open.
You can see what he gets up to here, https://www.instagram.com/ryan_k_explorer .
We came to the conclusion that the best option would be the opposite arm to the Exhaust Valve. This would have the added advantage of keeping the chest area smooth, clean and free of hoses for low restrictions while diving caves or wrecks.
Ryan went all in on the idea and ordered a custom suit from Santi with this valve configuration factory installed as well as another modification to the zip placement.
Having dived with Ryan using his new suit on a number of occasions with this valve configuration I could see it all looked very clean while allowing smooth easy access to the valve.
I decided to re-configure one of my back up suits to try the new configuration.
It certainly feels clean in the water without any hose snagging or need to move hoses out of the way when moving through low areas and the valve is easy to find and actuate. I liked it so much I converted my primary suit to the same arm configuration.
One concern was that it would be difficult to connect the inflator hose one handed. This is not the case, it is actually quite easy to do, left or right handed, provided that the hose is un-pressurised, The diver is also aided by the fact that it is very easy to see what you are doing.
Another consideration was hose routing, but after one or two dives this was easily addressed. Ryan simply added a First Stage elbow to his hose, where as my First Stage configuration needed no adjustment at all.
(The videos here are to show the hose routing in-water and the ease of use.)
While using the system it occurred to me that it may also be of use to those using Chest Mounted CCR or Chest Mounted counterlungs where the chest mounted inflator valve could be hidden or difficult to access.
Australian Drysuit Repairs has in the past moved exhaust valves for those customers who prefer the exhaust valve further back around the arm from the standard open water position. We are now offering the reconfiguration of the chest inflator valve to the “Catch” arm placement for those that may prefer it. As always we are happy to discuss the pros and cons of the “Catch” system and the considerations required to decide whether the right or left arm is preferable. The good thing here is that the inflator and exhaust valve seats are interchangeable (specific to brand -Apeks or Si Tech) so you can try both left or right handed operation relatively easily.

Replacing over sized boots to correctly fitting neoprene socks on a Fourth Element Hydra Neoprene dry suit.

Thanks for everyones patience while we were away. A quick trip over to the Roe Plains for a bit of R&R. Andrea here having a birthday dip in the emerald waters of Burnabbie cave on the Blue Reel line. SCUBA FORCE

A testing time.