marine grade fabric?

[PrettyScorpio]

I found some beautiful marine grade vinyl. It already has a wonderful scale like pattern and texture. Has anybody used anything like this for making a swim tail. Thoughts and comments are most welcome.

[Echidna]

Vinyl fabric is listed as an undercategory of nylon spandex with some suppliers.
It's also supposed to be very durable and resistant to fade, also has antibacterial qualities.

Does the supplier specify it's suited for "swimwear, sportswear, dancewear"?
If yes, it should make excellent tail material.

If not, you can give it a try, but usually the results are not so nice after exposing such material to water and chlorine.
(I bought some fantastic looking lycra fabric which didn't have explicitly stated it was suitable for swimwear, and that tail practically became unusable really fast :p
so check that, unless you make a dry tail only.)

[PrettyScorpio]

My uncle refinishes boats and gave me about 4 yards of the fabric. It is the stuff you make boat and jetski seats out of. Unless you take a knife to it, it is very durable.

[Ilyena]

It might be slightly problematic as it may not stretch as much, but the durability sounds great. Adding a zip to get in and out might be an idea.

[MerAnthony]

I think I know the fabric you are talking about, but to my information that type of fabric doesn't stretch very much. As for durability it's great that is why they use it for seats on water craft. To use that fabric for a tail? It would have to made to the perfect measurments of your body with no deviation in the measurments sence that fabric doesn't stretch much.

[PrettyScorpio]

I was planning on putting a waterproof dorsal zipper about 16" long and another zipper in the tail for the monofin. The material is just a little less stretchy than 4mil neoprene. (the stuff has to stretch tight over seats)

Fitting isn't a problem. I have a body dummy for making chainmail costumes.

My main problem is nothing sticks to it. I really wanted to texture the fluke with aquarium grade silicone. I will just have to make the fluke out of neoprene.