Changing your gaskets is not as hard as it appears. We've outlined the basic steps to get you on your way to having a brand new garment.

To begin, order a replacement kit which will come with almost everything you'll need.The missing item? A mandrel, nothing to do with bluegrass, is a tubular device to hold the end of the dry suit open and provide a place to position the replacement gasket. In a perfect world we'd all have a woodshop buddy to turn us all a perfect set of mandrels on his lathe, but of course in a perfect world there would be no poison ivy on any of our river runs.

In lieu of perfection, a two-liter coke bottle works well for the wrist. The ankle on some suits fits nicely over a three-liter bottle. Gaskets need to cure overnight so check the menu before you go rummaging through kitchen cabinets. I've seen plastic Halloween pumpkins, paint cans and various inflatables used.

Make sure you have time to do the job. Rushing the work is the easiest way to screw it up. Try to start early enough in the year so the gluing can be done outdoors. It's amazing how a little vyna bond odor can fill up an entire house. This is not a good thing!

Remove the old gasket. For the most part you can peel the old gasket off without the use of solvents or heat. Use your mandrel; this provides a firm surface to peel off the old gasket and helps when you sand its former location. Sanding or buffing the area to be covered by the new gasket roughs up the surface and aids in gluing. On PVC, Gore-Tex or nylon it's easy to see where the old gasket overlapped onto the material.


With the mandrel in place in the dry suit, take the replacement gasket and roll back the edge to be glued to the suit the same amount as the area that has been buffed.


Slide the replacement gasket (with the lip still rolled back) on to the mandrel till it butts up to the dry suit. If you have both pieces in proper position there should be no mandrel showing (Figure #2).


If you have the mandrel, the gasket and the dry suit in place, you're ready to get out the glue. Take some rubbing alcohol on a clean rag and wipe both surfaces to be glued. The gasket kits come with a tube of glue that has enough to do about ten gaskets, so don't think you have to use all of it. The less you can use the better the job will be. Neither of the surfaces are porous so they won't soak up glue and will run. After you apply the glue to both surfaces, take a busniss card or like and minimize (without removing) the adhesive on both surfaces.

Follow the dry time recommendation before you allow the two surfaces to come in contact with each other. Ask your assistant to hold the dry suit firmly without touching any of the glued area while you roll down the lip of the replacement gasket to cover the glued area of the dry suit. If you have a good tight fit with the mandrel, you should have no wrinkles at the glue joint. At this point the best thing you can do is go to the river and don't even look at the repair until the next day; the second easiest way to screw up the job is to start diddling with it. After you roll down the lip on the gasket it is in the hands of the vyna bond.