Invisible Fins

[sambolino44]

Didn't K2 make a snowboard that had lights powered by piezo-electric crystals activated by the flex of the board?

Anybody who'd buy clear fins better be ready to lose them.

 

[sambolino44]

If you had transparent fins, you would have only lost it once... never to be found again...

Yeah, but I didn't see it when I found it; I bumped into it.

Like that would happen every time!

 

[Blair Mott]

Fisheater-I always think about the Sparkel Force Fins and how they must look like giant fish lures on a night dive and with your idea about led/fiber optics I am really thinking -Moving Lures on a divers feet- Cool! I look forward to the day. You could even rig them to make signals, dive profiles, your gas supply ect!
For safety the Force Fin Neon Yellow is great.

White might punch up more at extreme depth, but from the air and through the wind chop at the surface the Neon Yellow is a great signal tool for people searching for divers.

The Flying Force Fin flew the psychedelic colors decades ago.

Photo by Bob Evans

 

[sambolino44]

What I'd like to see is a video, like in a wind tunnel test, only of a fin being used underwater, only, like in a wind tunnel, you can see the vortices and whatnot because of the "smoke" or colored water. It would be cool to see that the vortices coming off the tips of the Flying Force are smaller than the vortices on the tips of regular-shaped Force Fins. It would also be cool to use the same technology to see the vortices generated by the vortex generators on the bottoms of other Force Fin models.
Seems like it would be a pretty hard picture to take to get it to come out right.

 

[sambolino44]

Ooh! I just had another idea! Years ago a buddy of mine had a Stratocaster with a rainbow metal flake paint job. Depending on how the light hit it and the angle you saw it, it would shimmer with waves of rainbow sparkles!

How about clear with rainbow metal-flake sparkles? So, if the fins are "invisible" underwater, you'd look like you had no fins on, but had a rainbow sparkle trailer! And if it was lighting up.....whoah. It would look like you had no fins on but were kicking up trails of bioluminesce! How can you not make something like this!?!

 

[meesier42]

I tried to convince Bob to make the new Hockey fin in the diamond clear material and he informed me that it really won't quite work. The TanDelta material is a shore A material with durometers in the mid 80's to low 90's, naturally this material is a pale amber color not clear. The Diamond Clear whiskers are rock hard made from a completely different urethane that is in the 60 shore D range.

It sucks, I thought it would be really cool as well, but it appears it just won't quite work.

Sparkels and Tie-dye are awesome though.

 

[sambolino44]

OK then, some questions:

1. If the Tan Delta material won't come in clear, what about the material used for regular or Pro models; are they any lighter than Tan Delta with no colorant?

2. Have you made any fins with no colorant, or any colors that come closer to "disappearing" underwater? I can see why you may not have pursued invisible fins before, any sane person would want to make them more, not less, visible!

3. I'm taking it that the Diamond Clear material is only used for whiskers, etc. not for fins. Is that correct?

4. I keep reading about these sparkle fins. Can somebody post some pictures of sparkle fins, especially underwater?

 

[Venus]

Blair is looking into silver sparkles for me

4. I keep reading about these sparkle fins. Can somebody post some pictures of sparkle fins, especially underwater?

 

[miketsp]

I remember a few years ago my son bought a very expensive pair of polycarbonate long fins intended for spear fishing. They were from one of the top end manufacturers (I don't remember which) and UW the paddle was totally invisible leaving just a thin plastic support running 1/3 of the way down each side. Talk about freaking other divers out as he zoomed along, apparently with no fins.
Anyway they were a total failure for diving. First deep dive one fin cracked and was replaced by the shop/manufacturer. Second deep dive, cracked again. This time he received a total refund and we never again saw them on sale.

 

[meesier42]

most likely those were the Omer Ice Blade, which is a completely different type of material (TPU vice Cast Polyurethane)