Painting your Fins

[Mr. X]

Has anyone tried Acrylic art paints? They seem to be quite tough & cheap -- not sure how well they flex though. How about regular Latex house paint?

 

[SteveFass]

What's wrong with using just a silver Sharpie? I bought some over the weekend - haven't tried it yet - did I waste my money? My fins are the black rubber Appollos. Mainly got it to write my name on the inside for ID purposes, but thought of doing a pattern on the bottom to increase their coolness factor.

 

[hex92]

The silver sharpie will work alright on harder plastics. It looks good on my dive light, and my computer, but it didn't do well on my Jet Fins. I had to use a white paint pen for those.

What's wrong with using just a silver Sharpie? I bought some over the weekend - haven't tried it yet - did I waste my money? My fins are the black rubber Appollos. Mainly got it to write my name on the inside for ID purposes, but thought of doing a pattern on the bottom to increase their coolness factor.

 

[mrkrag]

I used to work in a sign shop and we always had rolls of DOT grade reflective vinyl around for making road signs. It is a continuous form, not honeycombed like the SOLAS stuff someone else had mentioned. So either it wont delaminate at depth, or the whole sheet will peel apart, dont know, havent tried it.

If you want something reflective, look in the yellow pages under 'signs' and you should find about a million or so sign shops within a block of your house. Just ask them if they have any cut scraps or offer to buy a square foot of it off the roll.

I am inclined to agree with slingshot however that the bright flashes may create more attention in the water than you want. Ever seen a 'cuda chase a dropped dive knife? I dive freshwater here in florida and have been discouraged from marking fins/gloves in white by others calling it 'gator bait'.

 

[jefe]

Hey there-

new to the board. nice idea about the tool coating. Off of Anacapa on my first night dive I lost my nice new (expensive)light. I had just shut it off as I was about to climb aboard. It caught on the bottom of the swim step an the lanyard brok from my wrist. Someone went down but nothing. Since then, I've put small 1" wide strips of reflective tape on any gear (black reflective on my fins)that my part from my immediate being . Picked up from galls.com. It's emergency services supply place. Have never had poblems with the underwater natives.

 

[JustinW]

I know this thread is old, but it was revived for some reason. I know people have various reasons for wanting to paint their fins, but if the idea is for identification, why not just use colored zip ties on parts of your fins. This works particularly well with Jet fins or other fins with vents as the zip tie can be wrapped around the vent, or could be wrapped around the strap or buckle also if nothing else will work. Zip Ties won't go anywhere if secured snugly.

 

[Mr. X]

... in the UK at least, reflective material is VERY EXPENSIVE & hard to buy is non-tiny, non-huge quantities. Dayglo (strontium aliminate) is cheaper -- but I think somebody mentioned that its no much good.]

I ended up getting a relatively large quantity of reflective white reflective tape off ebay (from a sign writer that had been to a trailer company's bankrupcy sale in Scandinavia!). I marked up all my gear will it. It looks ok.

Also, it works -- I dropped my dive knife (again!) while removing the spear from a speared fish but quickly located it on a nearby reef -- the band of reflective tape around the handle made the hard-to-see black and grey knife standout clearly. I also
dropped my clear snorkel as I entered the water, at first I thought I had forgotten it but decided to feel around -- the 2"' of white tape I added to the tip help locate it -- but a different colour and larger marked area would have help [BTW my next snorkel will not be clear (will prob. go for black) and will not have a valve (unreliable, waste of time) but will have an orange tip (much safer & easier to see) and (preferrably) a 2 slash semi-dry top (a simple improvement that does seem to work without hinderance)].

The tape held well except for my old black fins, on which I used a lot of tape.
I added diagonal stripes to the fins and solid blocks around the heels and squares inside and under foot. They looked rather cool. However, after a week solid of spearfishing from beaches & on reefs, about a quarter of the tape has now come off or is peeling off the fins -- which is a tatty. However, most is still on. I have just bought some new fins (a surprise find, a nice pair of Speedo fins from JJ Sports a UK chain store -- quite large, sleek, full foot pocket (ideal for snorkelling), blue & black plastic/rudder and in a decent nice mesh bag and at 14.99 GBP a v. good price by UK standards) and plan to mark those up, as I still have a lot of reflective tape left ... probably just a few large blocks or stripes (to maximize hold), as smaller pieces come off easiest.