Here he is folks!
Latex expert Brian Nystrom. The antidote to a pleasant moment. Now back to your bickering.
Huh?..
and just what was your contribution to the gasket discussion?
Brian’s suggestions and direct responses to email inquiries helped me with my initial gasket trimming over four years ago. He continues to provide sound advice on a number of sea kayaking topics including cockpit/deck outfitting, repairs and GP paddling building (he even wrote a book on the subject).
I’m just an oversized chuckle
suppository for the chronically unamused
And that’s exactly…
what I did. (i’m the original poster)
I trimmed it. It fits perfectly. In fact, I used a very sharp paper cutter, the kind with big blade/handle, and it made a perfectly even, one slice cut. Slice, try for fit, slice again, done. And I’d do it again too! 
I’ve now got some serious rubber bands to play with!
With some of the scraps, I actually nicked a piece and tried to tear it. It doesn’t tear easily, if at all. So, it appears that if a gasket tears from trimming, it probably needed replacing anyway. Now we’ll see how long the gaskets last in normal use.
This is almost like
to circumsize or not circumsize.
“Why cut needlessly?”
“Get rid of it. You don’t need it.”
Where’s a good Rabbi with a steady
hand when you need him?
Uh… He’s right…
– Last Updated: Jan-14-08 10:07 PM EST –
Here he is folks!
Posted by: tsunamichuck on Jan-14-08 7:21 PM (EST)
"Latex expert Brian Nystrom. The antidote to a pleasant moment. Now back to your bickering. "
Chuck, you're wrong on this one...
Do you have a personal problem with Bryan for providing his experience...?
Do you have anything to contribute?
My experience is "TRIM".... no problems ever...
Stretch just prematurely wears and fatigues the gasket. It's common sense really...
trim it
My neck is a 17.5.
If I didn’t trim my stohlquist dry top it would be so uncomfortable that I wouldn’t wear it. Made the veins pop out of my forehead. I trimmed it 2 or 3 years ago and it’s never torn and I don’t need talcum powder to get it over my head (and I have a big head).
Just got a Stohlquist drysuit. Almost broke my neck trying to get the thing on. Will be trimming very soon.
People more knowledgeable than me
Have stated that sex is more pleasurable with a foreskin than without. Not sure how they came to that conclusion.
Stohlquist says:
“Seals on new suits may need to be trimmed for proper fit.”
the instructions (for my new drysuit) go on to explain how to cut the neck, wrist and ankle gaskets.
they say: “We do not recommend trying to pre-stretch gaskets.”
Nystrom wins!!!
If there’s one thing I’ve learned
it’s that there is more than one way to skin a cat.
But I am glad to know now that there is only one way to fit a gasket.
; )
No one "wins."
BOTH are correct.
Gasket Care Instructions (Kokatat):
“Latex gaskets are intended to fit snug;
they will stretch some with use. If the neck
is too tight, STRETCH it onto some kind of a
form (i.e. cook pot)4 inches larger in diameter
than your neck, overnight or longer. If it is
still too tight, it may be carefully TRIMMED.
Nicks or cutting down the gasket can ruin it.”
I’ve done it both ways, with two different suits (mine and my wife’s suit). Patience and care are the still the key whether stretching/trimming. BOTH ways of doing it, still needed replacement gaskets after 4 years use. And no one method wore out faster than the other.
Stop fighting lads.
Anytime the words “trim” and…
sex get introduced into the topic of what to do in your, ahem…“drysuit”, I wonder what is really going on in some Pnetters households.
Augustus Dogmaticus
MMVIII
i’ve never trimmed
the gaskets. always stretched. never been a problem.
additionally, i’ve learned to push the gasket down as low as i can get it on my neck and found that to be more comfortable.
i’ve used 303 for lube on them - seems to work okay.
keep the zips waxed.
good luck.
Everyone has a chance to try both
methods on their own. You get a suit with two wrist gaskets. Stretch one over a 20 oz plastic soda bottle, for a couple of weeks. Trim the other. Compare.
Simple answers
"stretching a gasket with something only a little larger than your neck diameter?"
It doesn’t hurt anything, but it doesn’t do anything, either. Latex has a memory and will return to its original size, just as it does when you take your suit off.
“What do they say about the real stress on gaskets, the unavoidable repeated donning and removing over one’s head?”
If you apply talc to the inside of the seal, it will slide on and off easily and evenly, reducing localized stresses that could cause damage. Donning the suit is always easier, as your head will pop right through. Exiting requires inserting one’s fingers (all of them, to spread the stresses out) on both sides and working the seal up over one’s head. Avoid excessive stretching and be careful about fingernails, rings, etc. that could damage the seal.
Both your answers are wrong, and
display a heedless wrong-headedness. You have no reason to deny that I have succeeded in stretching three drytop neck gaskets, and six drytop wrist gaskets, to the point that they STAYED comfortable. How would you feel about it if I called you a liar by claiming that you had gasket failures from trimming? Learn some manners.
And, as to putting gaskets over one’s head, or removing them, that there will be local distortion and stretching FAR EXCEEDING what occurs when a carefully sized plastic soda bottle is slipped through, is so obvious that it does not even bear discussion. Donning and doffing neck gaskets is the greatest source of stress and the greatest contribution to eventual failure. Powder it, 303 it, baby it, hire a committee to remove the gasket with utmost care, it won’t matter. Now, I suppose, you will tell me, as you have before, that somehow transient stresses don’t matter. But everyone’s experience with rubber bands is that they fail most often under transient stress, not under mild extension.
You really have gone to the point of saying, “Don’t look at the other side’s evidence.”
I actually tried that when I purchased
my dry suit several years ago.
I saw no appreciable change to the ‘stretched’ gasket, so I have been trimming them ever since.
YMMV
Guess again
If you’ve managed to stretch seals to fit, good for you. I tried it on several different garments with a variety of different sized objects - getting progressively larger - and never managed to stretch the seals to anywhere near where they needed to be. That includes replacement seals that were purchased in the largest size available, and I’m not an especially big guy (6’, 175#, 17" neck, 6.5" wrists). I found that the length of time I stretched the seals made no difference at all, as some of them were stretched for weeks on end with no change.
The fact is that - as SEAL manufactures point out - latex seals do not stretch to any substantial degree unless your willing to over-stress them. If your body parts are close in size to the seal size, stretching may work, but for many people, it’s a complete waste of time.
You’re dead wrong about stresses when donning a suit, at least as it relates to common stretching advice. People here and elsewhere have recommended stretching seals over objects much larger than one’s head, which obviously stresses the seal more than pulling it over your head, at least if it’s been powdered first.
I agree that the most stress that seals see is when take a suit off and that’s when most of them fail. However, failures are generally caused by one or more of three things:
- Sharp objects (rings, earrings, fingernails) tearing the seal when it’s under high tension
- Deterioration due to sun or chemical (ozone, sunscreen) exposure
- Sloppy technique
This entire topic is really pretty ridiculous, as in the diving industry - where dry suits originated and the consequences of a seal failure are arguably more dire - trimming is the norm and no one even debates it. None of the seal manufacturers I checked out when looking for replacement seals debate it either, they all recommend trimming seals to fit. If it wasn’t for Kokatat pushing this stretching nonsense, there wouldn’t be any debate in the kayak industry, either. It seems that “trim-o-phobia” exists only in the kayaking industry and it’s pretty laughable.
Do whatever makes you happy, but after trying to stretch seals for a cumulative period of several months on several garments from different manufacturers and having ZERO success, it became pretty obvious to me that trimming is the way to go. Moreover, there is no downside to doing so. It’s VERY easy to do and your garments are comfortable immediately. I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather be paddling in a garment with comfortable trimmed seals than suffering with overly tight seals or staring at my new paddling garment for weeks while attempting to stretch the seals.
I wish I had a buck for everyone I’ve spoken with who’s put up with weeks of waiting or discomfort, then ended up trimming their seals anyway.
I take it that you were trimming…
…wrist seals with the paper cutter? I can’t imagine being able to trim a neck seal evenly with one.
Stretching not an option
There’s simply no way that I can put a stiff, thick, tight, tiny Stohlquist neck or ankle gasket on without trimming! To have any chance of physically getting the suit on, it’s not a matter of a bit of stretching for comfort, I have to make the gaskets significantly larger/looser. So that answered it for me.
Nothing against stretching, but for me and for my Stohlquist gaskets (and as per its instructions), trimming is clearly the only option and I have no reservations about it.
PY.