Best winter gloves?

[Paul Oliver]

OK may have to spend on some new winter gloves and was wondering about the options around at the moment I gather that these thin and very tight gloves do very well in the cold?

I have used standard 5mm gloves in the past, my current ones being from Waterproof - but with a jammed up zip while i'm here any top tips on releasing a corroded zip?

[mike22]

soak the Zip in vinigar/cola may loosen it up, as for new gloves I used 5mm Fourth Element all year round.

[Chris Thomas]

Ultrasonic bath? for the zip I mean...

I have the Waterproof 5mm gloves, I've had 5mm Scubapro, Beaver, Poseidon, you name it. The Waterproof ones are good :-)

[peterb]

Best winter gloves?

Personally use a pair of £20 seac sub 3 mm gloves yes 3mm no fancy zips of celcro great dexterity, Have tried thicker ones before with all the bells and whistles but the seac gloves fit perfect and I have never felt cold in them on a standard 40min dive. I am not a well hard person either and I do feel the cold in my hands

[timmyg]

Best winter gloves?

Honestly, you can't beat any made by Fourth Element. I use their 3mm all year round but I do have a pair of 5mm for the extremely cold days. They also do mitts.

Excellent quality & value for money.


TG

Sent from my iPhone using Timmytalk (hopefully)

[crabbymedic]

i find the fourth element ones too small even with xxl.
i'm looking at the XS neo dry gloves

[steve6690]

I'm currently using Poseidon 5mm gloves which are slightly better than the Fourth Element 5mm's I had before. Winter quarry dives still leave me with freezing hands after a 45 min dive. I was in Germany over Christmas diving in a 3-degree lake and borrowed some gloves made by a german firm - GNT. We did 40-50 minutes and I still had warm hands at the end. They are 3-finger gloves and were so good I've ordered a pair. There's a video on Youtube - the gloves are shown at 3:15.
The drysuit looks a bit olde worlde but I can vouch for the gloves.

boot 2011: Neu bei GNT Trockentauchanzüge - YouTube

[bubbleless]

Something to think about after you have done a few deep dives, they seem to lose some of the thickness.

So my 5mm toasty new gloves will be better than my old dived toasty gloves, even if they are the same make and model.

Make sure there is a good seal around the wrist, this "keeps" the warmer water inside the gloves, insted of heating up the fish around you.

I find if you keep your fingers moving that sometimes helps.

Warm water in the glove before the dive, I used to use coffee out of my flask, be careful don't burn your fingers when you put them in your gloves.

By the time you have done all the above you may as well use dry gloves.....

[Ian_6301]

Jammed up zip is a bummer. Normally I'd recommend WD40 or similar, but I suspect that this might turn the neoprene to jelly...

As for new gloves, I have recently plumped for some Fourth Element 5mm jobs (to complement my 3mm FE ones, which are my glove of choice). They are much better than my old Hydrotech ones, which always seemed to slosh water in and out during the dive.

The other thing that you can try is to keep your wrists warm. I guess you're using a drysuit? If you have ltex seals, there is a bit of your wrist that always gets cold. At this point, the blood supply to your hands runs close to the skin and will get cold too, so the blood that should be warming your hands up is actually not doing this as well as it could.

The answer is to make sure your arns are insulated. SOmeone (I think Woz?) on TFTSNBM suggested using the sleeves of an old wetuit, cut down to fit and worn next to the skin. The object of the exercise is to make sure that there is as little cold skin as possible.

My new (ish) suit has double seals - latex underneath and a neoprene cover over the top. This works well for me and if you find that wearing them under your suit is good but faffy, you might want to try glueing them on the outside...

The alternative is dry gloves...

[Chrisch]

Hi Paul, nice to see you "over here".

I also use regular 5mm gloves (Decathlon ones). The Waterproof are pretty good IMHO and would be well up my list if I could justify the expense. I bought some Fourth Element a while back but couldn't get on with them and sold them as they were too thick for doing shutdowns and I couldn't actually get the damn things on once my hands were wet.

[String]

Winter gloves for me are drygloves. With any form of wet gloves including the much raved 4th element and mitts i was out after 20-25 mins with hands so cold they were in burning agony.

[Paul Oliver]

The other thing that you can try is to keep your wrists warm. I guess you're using a drysuit? If you have ltex seals, there is a bit of your wrist that always gets cold. At this point, the blood supply to your hands runs close to the skin and will get cold too, so the blood that should be warming your hands up is actually not doing this as well as it could.

The answer is to make sure your arns are insulated. SOmeone (I think Woz?) on TFTSNBM suggested using the sleeves of an old wetuit, cut down to fit and worn next to the skin. The object of the exercise is to make sure that there is as little cold skin as possible.

Ahh the Janos warm forearm thread on YD he did a link to some neoprene sleeves vets or farmers use.

[Ian_6301]

As a compare/contrast, I did 2 dives last weekend. Dive 1 was to approx 21m, using 5mm Hydrotech gloves, surfacing at 42 mins. My fingers were numb from the second knuckle down. I could manage a shutdown (just) but not to get my fins off once I got out. Burning agony then ensued for 5 mins as circulation was restored...

Dive 2 was with the FEs. These, as ChrisCH rightly points out, are a right pig to get on when wet, to the extent that vet lube may well be on the cards... Dive 2 was the same depth for the same time (give or take 3 mins), albeit heading the other way. After 42 mins, my hands were cold, slightly painful, but retained full strength and feeling.

The water on both dives was about 6 or 7 degrees - Stoney Cove in January... The Hydrotechs were a pair that I have had for years and tbh a newer and less tired pair of the same may well be OK, but despite having no holes in them, these were just no good any more.

I do feel, though, that dry gloves may be on the agenda quite soon, as long as I can revert to wet gloves (or no gloves) in the summer.

[Paul Oliver]

Ultrasonic bath? for the zip I mean...

I would but i don't have one

[Paul Oliver]

I do feel, though, that dry gloves may be on the agenda quite soon, as long as I can revert to wet gloves (or no gloves) in the summer.

Yeah i enjoy not wearing gloves or just gardening gloves for most of the year

Are there dry gloves about without the big hoop bits?