Tail Makeover!

Holiday!!
That means that I can give my tail a makeover! :yay:
I ordered my Lycra yesterday and it'll arrive tomorrow. :D
I've been drawing a few fluke designs and seached for my old pair of fins this .
The polycarbonate I'll use for my monovi,n which I bought 2 years ago, (and it has been taped to wall half behind my closet:confused: (to safe space)) can be finally used now.

In 'short' my plan:

Step 1: - Draw and decide on fluke design.
- Destroy old fins to use the footpockets.
- Cut the polycarbonate in the desired fluke shape.
- Glue footpockets onto monofin.
- Test monofin hopefully on Thursday.

Step 2: - Lay cutout moniofin on the Lycra.
- Trace the shape.
- Sew it together on both fluke sides, NOT the fluke bottom.
- Insert finished and tested monfvin
- Sew a sort of fringe on the Fluke bottom in an attempt to hide the bottom seam.

Step 3: - Test finished tail and live hapily aver after!

And now I hope you can help choose between my fluke choises:
Fluke 1
Attachment 24935

Fluke2
Attachment 24936

H2O Fluke Shape
Attachment 24937

I personally like the first fluke, but narrow it down to your 2 favorite flukes, flip a coin and whichever one you hope for mid flip, is the one you should go with. I made my lycra tail at the beginning of the summer, black and red, and now that it's too cold to swim, I've decided to add hand made scales which may take a while. :) I hope your tail turns out how you want it.

I think fin 1 will be more efficient than fin 2. It would probably also be easier to cut than 3.

Just a quick reminder- make sure you round out the center cut if you choose 1 or 2. You don't want it to break from stress.
This thread makes it more clear :)

Good luck!

I'm leaning towards the H2O the most, and the Polycarbonate would be cut rounded of, without the 'ruffles' the H2O fluke shows.
The Lycra however would be cut with the 'ruffles'. The patterns are used for both the fabric and the monofin.
Fluke 1 is my second option if the H2O is just not really what I expected.

It's scary, I have limited fabric and only one sheet of polycarbonate, large enough for one monovin. I have only one chance to make this work...
Erhm..No pressure...?

My dad is enlarging and printing the H2O today in the rigt size (50cm x 80cm). And my mom will try and snatch the fabric from her college mailwoman(:confused:).

And yeah, I remembered this morning to round the middle from the first 2 flukes.

One more picture, could've shared a few more, if my dad didn't forget the enlarged printed H2O fluke....
Anyway, here a picture of the piece of fabric that came this afternoon.
(The sheet of polycarbonate is 100x50cm, (or 39³⁄₈x19¹¹⁄₁₆ inches(?)))
So this piece of fabric is kinda huge...
Attachment 24953

Progress!! Not much, but still. And more Pictures!!
My dad finally brought back the printed fluke drawing.
so I got to work and enlarged it a little bit more, making ik a tab bit wider to fit 100x50 cm.
Which worked out fine:
Attachment 24995
I took the picture with the paper under the polycarbonate because the paper kept rolling itself up to a cillinder.
Not really usefull for photographing.

And then I took my old pair of Fins,
Attachment 24996

And iron saw, after trying to cut it with a Stanley Knife(probably not the right word for it..)
And turned them into this:
Attachment 24997

The next thing now is trying to finish the monofin saturday, so that I can test it on sunday.
And then go my own home in another town for a week of school, come back the next weekend and finish sewing the tail with help from my mom.

Excellent progress! Good luck! I hope it turns out great!

Thank you!
I hope so, I just got the tail last week on monday.
But I've been planning to make a tail for almost 5 years now, so I kinda sort of know what to do.
It feels weird doing this for the first time, and doing it kind of on auto pilot.

Finished my Monofin!!!!! So... Progress Pictures!!!!
Didn't test it yet, that'll hopefully be tomorrow...

My dad did most of it, since he won't let me use his tools.
So he cut the polycarbonate in the desired shape.
Drilled holes in the flipper footpockets and glued and screwed them to the sheet.
And right now it's drying in the backyard.

The polycarbonate cut in shape:
Attachment 25011

The footpockets attached to the polycarbonate
Attachment 25012

How it's drying
Attachment 25013

And, I compared the foil to my Waterway 'competitor'
Huge diffence in sizes...
Attachment 25014
Next to eachother

Attachment 25015
On top of the 'Competitor'

Okay... Monovin was done and I tested it yesterday at the local swimming pool.

It snapped, so I can't continue now. I need to find another sheet of plastic (not polycarbonate this time)
I googled for Lexan, but it seems that that's nowhere to be found in the Netherlands...

Aw rats! Where did it break?

You'd be better off searching for 'polycarbonate sheet', Lexan, Makrolon, Makroclear, arcoPlus®, Tuffak®, Polygal® are all brand names.

It snapped right at the toes of the footpockets.
Al the poolstaff guarding the pool started telling me that those bolts had made the sheet less flexible.
And I was there thinking, 'yeah, I've never seen you when I was finning friday evening with the monofinclub, so what would you know?!'
But yeah, now I need to wait for a while before I can try again, because my parents are allright with me having a tail,
but I found out this week(end) they're not very fon of helping me out, giving my tail a new look.

I'll try your search tips, thanks!

Weird, it shouldn't have done that, even with just one layer. Are you sure it's polycarbonate and not some other kind of plastic? I noticed it has a chunk off the corner, and I don't know that I've ever seen opaque poly used before.
I guess the bolts could have been too close together at the toes. I feel like most people have used bolts without problems though, so I think that's weird.

I'm thinking about what it looks like when people use only one layer of polycarbonate, and generally it flexes right at the toes because it's not strong enough to roll the power down to the end (which is why monofins are thicker at the toes and thin at the bottom.) Lexan can handle this for a while because it's so flexible, but other plastics just snap.

I guess it could be the shape' s fault, too, though I doubt it's the whole reason.

So I guess I mostly suspect your poly of not being poly. Pictures of the break would be helpful.

I'm sorry your parents are being weird about helping you... your dad did a nice job with your prototype for someone who doesn't want to help.

I noticed that you didn't have the entire foot of the shoe on the polycarbonate. I have a monofin made by mernation that is two dive shoes bolted onto lexan. The entire foot up to the heel is on the lexan and I have not had a problem with them breaking, and I am not kind to my monofins. I don't want to have to baby something that I use to swim in. Maybe that is the problem with the breakage? Also, they have a small piece of harder plastic (I don't know what kind) just under the feet on the fin.

Polycarbonate DOES snap, I've snapped three, so far.

The shape does have a lot to do with it, I've found the polycarbonate monofins need to be short and stubby. I had one break right across at the tip of the toes (high stress area) and the other two broke across the wide part of the fin towards the center.

I would refine the shape more like this (blue line), glue another layer for support (green line for foot plate, I use PolyZap glue), and move your feet further onto the fin. Get your heels onto it if possible, they act as a fulcrum on the downstroke.

Attachment 25073

I don't have pics of the snapped fin, I can take a few pictures of the footpockets, I'm keeing those for the next try, but that would be next weekend, I'm in my 'study town' right now for school.
I bought the sheet 2 years ago, but my mom and I really looked for polycarbonte and the sticker on the sheet said that.

There was one good thing this weekend, my dad came to me that saturday to tell me that we could finish the fin that afternoon.

I don't like the look of my feet completely on the fin, especially with the shape of the fin at the top.
And this is the video were my inspiration came from:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wBMRJcFVgI
and this fin worked...

Her feet are completely on the poly, and that has to be the floaty-est tail in the world. With the long 'fingers' of fin cut out, there's no real stress on each elongated section, and being encased in neoprene takes some of the water pressure off the lexan, too. Comparing that fin to yours is like comparing apples to oranges.

Okay, I think I get it, but what do you suggest I'd try the next time?
I don't want it to be a faillure the net time.
Even tough I laughed about it, I'm afraid I won't be so happy the next time it fails.

Are you covering your monofin with fabric?

Yes, that's also why I rounded off the edges, and sandpapered all the other edges to prevent sharp points.