No Undergarment- Options?

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Anthony
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No Undergarment- Options?

Post by Anthony »

I know this is probably a stupid question, but can I wear a dry suit without the fancy undergarment suit? I just picked up a DUI CLX450 and wanna try it out tomorrow, but I don't have the under jammies. I don't really have the extra cash right now to go get one as they are pretty pricey from what I've seen.

Am I gonna die of hypothermia if I don't have one? Can I wear six sets of thermal underwear to simulate the effect? Latex body paint? Ideas?

Thanks,
Anthony
dsteding
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Re: No Undergarment- Options?

Post by dsteding »

Anthony wrote:I know this is probably a stupid question, but can I wear a dry suit without the fancy undergarment suit? I just picked up a DUI CLX450 and wanna try it out tomorrow, but I don't have the under jammies. I don't really have the extra cash right now to go get one as they are pretty pricey from what I've seen.

Am I gonna die of hypothermia if I don't have one? Can I wear six sets of thermal underwear to simulate the effect? Latex body paint? Ideas?

Thanks,
Anthony
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WASP7000
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Re: No Undergarment- Options?

Post by WASP7000 »

Yeah I lost my undergarment once, so I wore long johns, sweat pants, a fleece jacket, and wool socks. As long as you get everything tucked into your pants, you are good to go. It worked just as good as my fleece undergarment.

As long as you layer your clothes, you'll be fine. I know it's easy to think about the undergarment as like required equipment and not using a one piece fluffy thing designed for a drysuit will cause bad things to happen, but in reality, anything that will keep you warm without a ton of thickness will work. My undergarment is actually really thin fleece, so I wear a lot of stuff under it that probably gives me more thermal protection than the undergarment itself.
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Anthony
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Re: No Undergarment- Options?

Post by Anthony »

Rock on, thats what I wanted to hear. I know by winter I'll probably want a good undergarment, but I want to get out and learn how to use this thing now without a whole lot of extra investment. Thanks for the input!
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spatman
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Re: No Undergarment- Options?

Post by spatman »

a lot of layers will trap air, so you may need a lot of lead to compensate. as you add and remove layers your weighing may change, too, so try to get some consistency in your layering until you get an undergarment.
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Re: No Undergarment- Options?

Post by WASP7000 »

This is just my opinion as I haven't been diving for years or anything, but I would definitely dive slightly overweighted when starting out with a drysuit. It's really helped me get used to the suit without worrying about a runaway ascent if I don't do everything just perfect (as in, it gives me a couple extra seconds to vent the suit when I realize I haven't kept up with expansion on ascents). I'm to the point now where I can start dropping weight as I can tell that I'm overweighted and I have more experience with my suit, but it really has helped.

And of course, just make sure your BC has plenty of lift to handle the wieght.
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Re: No Undergarment- Options?

Post by airsix »

You can get by for a bit on impromptu insulation, but it's far from optimal. Start saving right now and buy purpose-made insulation as soon as you can. I dived a drysuit for many years with layers of long-johns & sweats before buying good insulation. After that first dive in good undies I kicked myself for all the wasted years. If I was starting diving from scratch today a suit and good undies would be my first purchases.

-Ben
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Burntchef
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Re: No Undergarment- Options?

Post by Burntchef »

what size are you? i may have a set of undergarments and socks for you.
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Anthony
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Re: No Undergarment- Options?

Post by Anthony »

Burntchef wrote:what size are you? i may have a set of undergarments and socks for you.
Don't really know my size and I can't find a size on the drysuit. I had just tried it on and seemed to fit great. I'm 6 foot even at 150 lbs. Clothing I'm right in between M and L. Long Mediums are usually my perfect fit.
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Anthony
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Re: No Undergarment- Options?

Post by Anthony »

airsix wrote:You can get by for a bit on impromptu insulation, but it's far from optimal. Start saving right now and buy purpose-made insulation as soon as you can. I dived a drysuit for many years with layers of long-johns & sweats before buying good insulation. After that first dive in good undies I kicked myself for all the wasted years. If I was starting diving from scratch today a suit and good undies would be my first purchases.

-Ben
Yeah, I want to get one, and I will eventually. Like I said, its just money holding me back right now, I'm a student and not working, so I scrape money for air fills! The suit just fell in my lap, I was lucky enough to have the guy throw in a hose for my reg to fill the suit. Good guy!

WASP7000 wrote:This is just my opinion as I haven't been diving for years or anything, but I would definitely dive slightly overweighted when starting out with a drysuit. It's really helped me get used to the suit without worrying about a runaway ascent if I don't do everything just perfect (as in, it gives me a couple extra seconds to vent the suit when I realize I haven't kept up with expansion on ascents). I'm to the point now where I can start dropping weight as I can tell that I'm overweighted and I have more experience with my suit, but it really has helped.

And of course, just make sure your BC has plenty of lift to handle the wieght.
I'll see what I can do, I was using an 8 mil wetsuit and was pretty properly weighted with that, will I need a lot more with the dry suit with the air? I'm working on getting a bunch of lead from a shooting range to make new weights from. I'll see about grabbing a few extra pounds.
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Burntchef
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Re: No Undergarment- Options?

Post by Burntchef »

Anthony wrote:
Burntchef wrote:what size are you? i may have a set of undergarments and socks for you.
Don't really know my size and I can't find a size on the drysuit. I had just tried it on and seemed to fit great. I'm 6 foot even at 150 lbs. Clothing I'm right in between M and L. Long Mediums are usually my perfect fit.
i have a set of fleece you can have. when do you want to pick them up?
Chin high, puffed chest, we step right to it
The choice is there ain't no choice but to pursue it


"Diving the gas is the easy part, not much to it, plenty of retards are using it safely. " jamieZ
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Anthony
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Re: No Undergarment- Options?

Post by Anthony »

Burntchef wrote:
Anthony wrote:
Burntchef wrote:what size are you? i may have a set of undergarments and socks for you.
Don't really know my size and I can't find a size on the drysuit. I had just tried it on and seemed to fit great. I'm 6 foot even at 150 lbs. Clothing I'm right in between M and L. Long Mediums are usually my perfect fit.
i have a set of fleece you can have. when do you want to pick them up?
Thank you! I'm open today if you're up for it, or this weekend. Where are you located?
Last edited by Anthony on Wed Jun 30, 2010 11:02 am, edited 1 time in total.
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WASP7000
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Re: No Undergarment- Options?

Post by WASP7000 »

I'm diving with about 24 pounds plus 4 pounds of ankle weights (positive fins and wetsuit boots), which if I remember, is fairly close to what I was wearing with a wetsuit, maybe a little more and I'm about the same build as you.. Now I could probably lose about 4 pounds. I think part of that is because I'm diving a BP&W which is less bouyant than a regular BCD not to mention the backplate itself weighs about 6 pounds.

so I'm guessing my equivilent if diving a BC without that plate, would be like 34 pounds.

What we did was have my buddy carry a few extra weights since he knew his gear, and he handed them off to me if I needed them to get me dialed in. When I first started using a drysuit I was underweighted by the end of the dive with an empty tank and couldn't hold on my safety stop without finning down, which really sucks with a drysuit.

That's why I say it's definitely better to be a little overweighted than under.
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kat
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Re: No Undergarment- Options?

Post by kat »

"As long as you get everything tucked into your pants, you are good to go."

i love it! yoink!
"As long as you get everything tucked into your pants, you are good to go." -wasp7000
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Dive Monkey
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Re: No Undergarment- Options?

Post by Dive Monkey »

My undergarment has been on back order for a while now, so i have been going with thermals and sweats. It's worked pretty well so far. Just a little bit of a chill but nothing like diving wet
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Mongo
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Re: No Undergarment- Options?

Post by Mongo »

Dive Monkey wrote:My undergarment has been on back order for a while now, so i have been going with thermals and sweats. It's worked pretty well so far. Just a little bit of a chill but nothing like diving wet

Still getting the run around?

My dive shop is better than yours. :neener:

Seriously though, its been over three months. You could probably knit your own in that amount of time. I really doubt the manufacturer is that far behind. Unless, of course, things went to the sh*t house when they all got crabs.
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Re: No Undergarment- Options?

Post by Mongodives »

Polartec bibs, and a sweat shirt now, this winter the same with the addition of some polypro pants and a longsleeve T-shirt worked well.
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no excuses
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Re: No Undergarment- Options?

Post by no excuses »

Keep a eye on Ebay, i pocked up a set of USIA exotherm 3 for under $40 plus shipping. Also picked up a set for girlfriend for under $30 plus shipping. Not a set of weezles but with a thin underlayer it's not bad.
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