First time tailmaking--Jade's attempt

[Angel Sara]

Your journey in creating a tail has been vital to mine, and I am very grateful that you posted it
I was wondering, what material is the white, seemingly cardstock-like stuff that you used to expand your monofin?
Thank you very much ^_~

[mermaidenspins]

I'm not sure if I am correct, but it looks to me that the white paper is just her paper pattern underneath the monofin. I think she just follows the outline to make sure it is the correct shape and the zip ties aren't too long, and the duct tape stays inside the lines, so to speak. She doesn't use the white paper inside the fluke at all- from what I've read and understood.

[Jadestone]

Oh gosh I haven't really had time to be on the forum in a couple years, sorry I didn't see these questions/those pm'd to me before!! D:

I have a fabric tail construction question...I followed your monofin alteration strategy and I have a fin I love the shape of based off my Rapid. Now I'm wondering...how did you get your monifin IN the tail? Did you slip in in the bottom and do a seam at the end of your fluke? I'm so puzzled by the logistics of this, and I'm a seamstress! Any threads other fabric tail lovers have found helpful?

I decided I wanted my monofin to be completely removable for cleaning, packing, alterations, etc. The bottom of my fluke has small patches of velcro glued onto it with e6000, about an inch before the edge of the tail. hat way I can open and close it. I used industrial strength velcro so that it would stay closed underwater, which has worked pretty well. It sticks a little less now that it's older, and I think in the future, I will sew the velcro instead of gluing it so that I can cut the threads to replace it if I need to (but it did last very well for 4 years!). If you do this method, make sure you put the monofin inside your tail where it will natureally be placed when your feet are in it, and then attach the velcro, so you don't have it too short/not enough room for the monofin by mistake. I would suggest leaving half an inch or so between the end of the monofin and where you place the velcro.

Your journey in creating a tail has been vital to mine, and I am very grateful that you posted it
I was wondering, what material is the white, seemingly cardstock-like stuff that you used to expand your monofin?
Thank you very much ^_~

I'm not sure if I am correct, but it looks to me that the white paper is just her paper pattern underneath the monofin. I think she just follows the outline to make sure it is the correct shape and the zip ties aren't too long, and the duct tape stays inside the lines, so to speak. She doesn't use the white paper inside the fluke at all- from what I've read and understood.

AngelSara: I am so glad that this was helpful to you!! I tried really hard to document everything I did since I spent soooo much time reading other people's tailmaking threads before starting my own tail. The white material as Mermaidenspins said is actually just a paper pattern, made out of some large sheets of paper I happened to have in my basement. The fluke extension itself is made ONLY of duct tape and zip ties, and I had the pattern underneath it while I worked to make sure I was geting the general shpe right--although I purposely made the duct tape larger than that, so I could trace it exactly and then cut it down to the proper size.

I also wanted to give an update on my fluke extension. Frankly, I am amazed that it has held up like it has--e6000 is no joke and duct tape really can fix anything!

Here are some photos of what my monofin looks like as of this morning:

??? Ok it won't let me upload the photos from my computer so I guess I will try again on my phone!

[Jadestone]

Well, I can't for the life of me get the monofin photos to upload (I guess mernetwork won't accept photos I take with my phone?? even after I email them to myself and try to upload them with my computer. Ho hum). But: it actually looks pretty much the same. The duct tape is coming up a milimeter or two on the edges of the fin, and sometimes bubbles around the zip ties, but i just run a finger over them whenever I use it and nothing ever comes up. The ends of it are also holding together fine, and it doesn't seem like any zip ties have come loose under the tape, though it's hard to be sure and I don't want to pull on them too much to check.

Overall, I think this method worked a lot better than I expected. I thought I'd have to do maintenance on it after a year or so but it's been 4 and held up fine. I think if I were using it every week (or multiple times a week) it would definitely have a lot more wear, but for the amount I get to use it, there haven't been any issues. And even if it was wearing out more, I think it'd be pretty easy to fix up now and then--just take off only the edge layer of tape to replace every now and then, since that's the only area that shows wear I can tell. Hurrah!

For my next tail I definitely want to go more dramatic on the shape, though. the fringe at the end of my tail makes it look more like a straight line than it is, and I really wish it had a more prominent length difference between the tips and the middle point for a more fishey effect.