Painting your Fins

[OBXDIVEGUY]

It occurred to me some time ago to make it easier for students and dive buddies to recognise and follow me. I found some Orange Day Glo duct tape in a hunting store and put streaks of that on the bottom of the fins. It works a treat by day. Now I need to find some reflective stuff for night time.

I've seen some cool glow in the dark duct tape that might work! I don't remember where, but I bet that would be neat on the underside of your fins.

 

[lairdb]

I've seen some cool glow in the dark duct tape that might work! I don't remember where, but I bet that would be neat on the underside of your fins.

In my misspent youth working tech in legit theater, I had occasion to use a great deal of glowtape. (Once eliciting a wisecrack from a stage manager that my stage looked like "nighttime at O'Hare". (I turned out to be right, though -- while he could see it from the control deck, it couldn't be seen at all from the seats.))

Even the best of it isn't very glow-y. It would be cool the first few seconds after you zapped it with a light, but would quickly fade to and insignificant greenish white. (The stickum is also terrible; you'd have to try Seal Cement or some such to keep it on.)

In reasonable viz, I have seen ordinary yellow "puffy paint" appear fairly effective (most memorably on the bottom of the fins of a guide who had "follow" on the left fin and "me" on the right.)

One I've been thinking of, but haven't tried yet, would be some strips of the SOLAS-grade reflective tape. No active emission, but highly reflective, to pick up any available light, especially a searching flashlight.

 

[cool_hardware52]

In my misspent youth working tech in legit theater, I had occasion to use a great deal of glowtape. (Once eliciting a wisecrack from a stage manager that my stage looked like "nighttime at O'Hare". (I turned out to be right, though -- while he could see it from the control deck, it couldn't be seen at all from the seats.))

Even the best of it isn't very glow-y. It would be cool the first few seconds after you zapped it with a light, but would quickly fade to and insignificant greenish white. (The stickum is also terrible; you'd have to try Seal Cement or some such to keep it on.)

In reasonable viz, I have seen ordinary yellow "puffy paint" appear fairly effective (most memorably on the bottom of the fins of a guide who had "follow" on the left fin and "me" on the right.)

One I've been thinking of, but haven't tried yet, would be some strips of the SOLAS-grade reflective tape. No active emission, but highly reflective, to pick up any available light, especially a searching flashlight.

Laird,

Any of the reflective materials with exposed glass beads, whinch includes most tapes and sewn goods wont reflect at all when wet.

The SOLAS tapes will work when wet as they are glass beads with a plastic outer cover. The plastic cover greatly reduces the reflectivity, (~25% of the uncoated materials) but it does work OK. The real problem with SOLAS is the air space between the glass beads and the plastic cover will eventually flood at depth.

The SOLAS products are really for life jackets that may get wet, but are submerged to any real depth.


Regards,



Tobin

 

[lairdb]

Any of the reflective materials with exposed glass beads, whinch includes most tapes and sewn goods wont reflect at all when wet.

The SOLAS tapes will work when wet as they are glass beads with a plastic outer cover. The plastic cover greatly reduces the reflectivity, (~25% of the uncoated materials) but it does work OK. The real problem with SOLAS is the air space between the glass beads and the plastic cover will eventually flood at depth.

Hey, Tobin. Re. the exposed bead materials (which also includes all the paints) that's what I figured and why I suggested SOLAS-grade product.

Do you have a sense for what "eventually" is with good, cell-encapsulated stuff like the 3M product? If it's good for a few hundred 4-ATM events, that's probably good enough.

It's probably worth pointing out to anyone else reading along that this stuff is all "retro-reflective", not omni-reflective -- light will be reflected back quite specifically toward where it came from. In situations of general light, they should be fairly brightish; in situations of directed light (e.g. a searching flashlight beam) you'll get much light straight back.

 

[cool_hardware52]

Hey, Tobin. Re. the exposed bead materials (which also includes all the paints) that's what I figured and why I suggested SOLAS-grade product.

Do you have a sense for what "eventually" is with good, cell-encapsulated stuff like the 3M product? If it's good for a few hundred 4-ATM events, that's probably good enough.

It's probably worth pointing out to anyone else reading along that this stuff is all "retro-reflective", not omni-reflective -- light will be reflected back quite specifically toward where it came from. In situations of general light, they should be fairly brightish; in situations of directed light (e.g. a searching flashlight beam) you'll get much light straight back.

Laird,

I haven't conducted well documented and controlled studies of the SOLAS materials, just got a couple samples from 3M and stitched them down on a piece of nylon and went diving.

The SOLAS material I had is retroreflective with a what appears to be a thin layer of transparent vinyl sealed to it in a hunny-comb pattern that leaves "cells"

After a single dive to ~90fsw water all the "cut" cells and all the cells that had stitches through them, had as you might expect, flooded.

After a couple more dives the cells adjacent to the cut cells had condensation in them.

After a couple more dives the "uncut" cells that first had condensation now had flooded and more cells showed condesation.

I abandoned the test at this point.

I can't say what would happen after a 100 dives, but after ~6 the results were not encouraging.


I haven't tested it yet, but my next effort would be white paint for underwater identification. I'd like to compare that to other colors.

Regards,



Tobin

 

[lairdb]

I haven't conducted well documented and controlled studies of the SOLAS materials, just got a couple samples from 3M and stitched them down on a piece of nylon and went diving.

The SOLAS material I had is retroreflective with a what appears to be a thin layer of transparent vinyl sealed to it in a hunny-comb pattern that leaves "cells"

After a single dive to ~90fsw water all the "cut" cells and all the cells that had stitches through them, had as you might expect, flooded.

After a couple more dives the cells adjacent to the cut cells had condensation in them.

After a couple more dives the "uncut" cells that first had condensation now had flooded and more cells showed condesation.

I abandoned the test at this point.

I can't say what would happen after a 100 dives, but after ~6 the results were not encouraging.

That's controlled enough for our purposes -- bummer. I would have expected the cut and punctured cells, but not the uncuts. OK, next idea....

 

[^*^BATMAN^*^]

would it be possible to get that goop stuff(cheap wetsuit repair stuff) to seal the edges and anywere taht there was stiching in them to see if it stops or slows the efects??

 

[SCUBAMedicBill]

I wear two different color fins, one blue and one yellow. It's ussually not to hard to find me.

I like Mydivelog's use of the Krylon Fusion pant. I may do some thing with that.

Obxdiveguy, does the tool dip make the fingures too hard where you lose the dexterity. I know we would use neoprene cement to coat the fingers of our gloves in order to make them more durable for seaching wrecks. But if we weren't careful, it would make the fingers too hard.

Bill

 

[OBXDIVEGUY]

Obxdiveguy, does the tool dip make the fingures too hard where you lose the dexterity. I know we would use neoprene cement to coat the fingers of our gloves in order to make them more durable for seaching wrecks. But if we weren't careful, it would make the fingers too hard.

Bill

It does toughen up the finger, so I just do the finger tips so I can still bend the knuckles. I use it for wreck diving in some harsh conditions and the dip really helps.

 

[SeanQ]

Wouldn't fish be attracted to the reflective tape and try to eat it?