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Fin Lineup - Any Questions?

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
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You got 5's?!

Anyways, yeah aren't Paul and Dennis the guys? On mounting your footpockets... take the old blades out and then spread the side rails much like you spread the legs of a, uh, well... a bird getting stuffed. Yeah that's it. Then stuff the end of the blades into the end of the pocket, under the toes as far as you can. It helps to have the footpockets warmed in the Sun. Then you take the rail of the pocket and roll the blade into the slot. Like rolling the cover onto a plastic food container, ya know? It's damn tough to try and just slide them in, so just roll them onto the blade. Taking a ice cream stick to help you out is fine. The rails of the fins fit into my pocket's rails to within 1/8" of the start of the blade's side rails, the black T shaped rails. (and no I don't know how many mm that is...:hmm ) Finish off by placing the plastic end clips onto the rails and you're good to go. These end clips are actually the toughest thing about the process.

On drilling them, AFTER you have the blades in place so you just know they're in there tight, just mark the blades through the holes in the footpockets with an ink pen and the disassemble the blades, yeah I know :head and drill them. Reassemble and off you go.

Hmmm... bird getting stuffed.:D
 
Two things that I have done to make sliding the blades in easier are:


1. Warm up the foot pocket in a wash tub full of HOT water- not boiling.:naughty

2. Spray everything down with some water-based silicone before trying to insert the blade.



Jon
 
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Fitting blades

Hi Andrew,

The easiest way to fit new blades into fin pockets like the OMER millenium or Sporasub is by following this procedure:

- push the back of the blade into fin pocket (under foot arch).
- OPen the rails so that the blades go in all the way
- Make sure the back of the blade is all the way to the end of the fin pocket, you have to wiggle it side to side to get it all the way in
- Bend the fin side rail at the base (where it connects to the pocket) all the way and push them onto the blade edge rails right at the bending, working your way up to the end, keep the bend and push onto blade
- do the same on the other side

It's ok if the rails don't come all the way up to the T edge of the Matrix blades. You may have to cut or shave the pocket rails since the Matrix don't have the groove that Omer Millenium pocket rails fit in. Get rid of that tip to get a better grip on the blade.

I usually drill after I put the blades in. Drill from the top of the fin where the holes are. Use standard drill bit, 1/4" or 3/8" should do I think, but start with smaller bits then go wider if you need

The rest is self explanatory.

I hope this helps,
Rabih
 
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wouldn't want to be poultry in front of sven:crutch

probably have one of the American Pie scenes going on...
 
hi

Thanks for the info guys and Sven thanks for the laugh about the stuffed chicken that was a bloody beauty :D

I think Ive got it all sorted now just need to go and borrow a drill and put the holes in hopefully all hell won't break loose :hmm


And yeah I got the 5#s they've got deep written all over em hopefully they will have the grunt needed :)

cheers
 
Originally posted by icarus pacific
As soon as Jon and I get our sets, we'll clue you in Murat.

I don't know...I'm still waiting on that Karma I was promised :cool:

When more Bat 30's and C4's come in I'll send you each a pair to try,customers come first now...(sure you understand) and I'll send you the Bat's and Jon the C4 30's to try, both of which scratched or not I'll just keep for myself.

My C4 30's are still in Italy with my diving equipment over there (at the familias') :) and my BAT 40's are here but tis' not the season to be using them. Out of season like this I keep all my dives less than 60ft. That way I don't risk a black out and not being able to chat with you guys anymore...

Mark
 
Check your karma box a little closer there Mark, I lobbed you some a couple of days ago.;)

I have a foot pocket question for you. I just picked up a new pair of OMER foot pockets and they are softer than other, older, models that I have tried.

Ted took a look at them too and noticed that they are much softer than the OMER footpockets on my monofin. Did you guys change the rubber mixture in some way? If so, good job as these now rival my Sporasub's in comfort- plus the OMER foot pocket has a much nicer blade attachment clip on them.


As far as the Special fins go, they just came tonight. The Kelpies are an exact match to the Pro's that Ted already has. They are medium stiffness and quite a bit softer than Ted's hards. The colors are pretty cool and I'll have to take some shots of them because the website pictures don't do them justice.

The Classic (hard) came as well and they look very much like a pair of BAT blades- the scalloping of the blade towards the tip. They are the same clear/tan color as the pro's and are perfectly straight, until you mount them in a pair of footpockets which gives them a slight bend- about the same as a apir of Cressi's.

I hope to get them in the pool this week, and in the lake in the next two. It would have been nice to have gotten them two days earlier to try out on the ice dives, but I've got nothing to complain about.;)

Jon
 
Always got to take it to the gutter there buddy.;)

BTW: Nice address job on the fin blades you sent me, my 65 year old mail man was giving a pretty strange look when he delivered them to me.:naughty

Jon
 
PHOTO SHOOT

I lined up a couple pair of fins to show some comparisons.

The First shot is of the Kelpie, medium, next to my C4, 40's, and then a Specialfin's classic, hard, on the right hand side. You can see the blade length difference for your self.

Next shot over shows the difference in blade angles. The first picture is of the Classic's, which are similar to the Matrix's, in a pair of OMER foot pockets. Next to, that picture is of the blade angle on my C4's in a pair of Sporasub foot pockets.

Next row shows the difference in rail attachments. The Special fin blades come ready to mount into OMER foot pockets, but you need to do a little modification to get the Sporasub foot pockets to work with them- at least the 3 pairs that I have seen so far. Since I didn't want to cut up my Sporasub pockets, you can see how they stick out a little on the sides of the Kelpies. I have a new pair of the OMER foot pockets that I just bought on the pair of Classic blades. You can see how nicely they mount. They are also much more comfortable than the older OMER pockets that I have used. If all of the new OMER pockets are like this I may have just found a new favorite.:D Lastly, you can see how snug a pair of Sporasub pockets fit onto a pair of C4 blades that were designed to work with them. Since I see that Jyri is now offering Sporasub pockets on his site, I assume you can now get the new blades any way that you want.

Last row shows the differences in width between them all. The classics are the widest of all. They are even a bit wider than the Kelpies are, and a LOT wider than the C4 blades.

I hope that I'll get a chance to test them in the pool tonight.

Jon
 
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Nice effort Jon, did you or ted give some reviews about C4 some where here?

May be its better to sum them up again after all the fin compared by sven and you...
 
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I gota tell you fellas that a lunch break reading sven's posts really does a number on my stomach. Man, if you ever want to come diving in Virginia or North Carolina you guys can stay at my house as long as my wife is gone...I try to keep from her the stereotype of divers and fisherman in general is true.

Jon, about the footpockets:
Footpockets for freediving fins are about the most complicated and expensive products to produce you could imagine. With molds costing as much as a small house for each size and the variation on people's feet and freedivers' preferences in mind over conventional fins, let me tell ya' it is no easy task producing a footpocket that is to the general liking of all freedivers. The Millenium footpocket is not meant for the diver trying a pair of dive fins for the first time or someone who want to use them without neoprene socks. It's a hard core freedivers' footpocket.
Combining two different rubber compounds, one in the neck of the pocket for comfort and the other in the lower section and along the ribs of the footpocket also fills a prerequisite of giving a trianed diver comfort without wasting power on a comfortable soft pocket fin. In addition, the clips that are on Millenium footpockets replace the old system like Sporasub still uses (which requires a notch cut out in the blade of the fin) by securing the tip of the footpocket rib onto the blade with a clip, not only strengthening the blade but also making it easier to switch.

That's the idea behing the Millenium pockets anyway. We noticed in the past the early footpocket have varied sometimes in stiffness footpocket size to footpocket size for some reason but for the last year all ours coming in have standardized into the soft in the neck of the pocket/harder in the sole-brace-rib section Milleniums that they were produced to be, so if you got some early hard ones those were replaceables and...

I ENCOURAGE YOU OR ANYONE ELSE WHO HAS A MILLENIUM POCKET THAT IS TOO HARD TO SEND IT IN FOR A REPLACEMENT.
If it's judged by us that it is in fact really a hard one and you're not just wimps not used to a serious foot pocket :eek:

Lastly, on sizing I agree and also know that our pockets just don't fit some people as well as Sporas for sizing reasons that
are too specific and out of the Millenium range.

Mark
 
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Nice comparison. Good to see you got the photo-thingy down pat.

Like Jon said, my stereopros are an exact match to the kelpies (and presumably the 'bluewaters' too). So read my older (extensive) reviews on these fins if you want to know more about those two.

Seems that Special fins goes with two different fin shapes. The kelpies/bluewaters/stereopros are longer and thinner than the classics/hybrids. From the photos I've seen of the hybrids, they have a similar (identical?) blade shape as the classics - plus of course, the hybirds have the footpocket angle.

Looking at Jon's photo of the classics, you can see the machined area on each side of the blade. The work looks very similar to the BAT blades. But the BAT blades are not the same shape as Specialfins Classics; they are shaped like the kelpies.

Confused? I'll try to make a chart.

The breakdown looks like this.

BTW. Mark, very cool of you to allow the exchange - now no one will have to sit in their lazyboys and 'work' the footpockets like knitting housewives (per Sven's recommendation). Don't know if I had a 'hard' pair of pockets, or if I'm just a nancy, but I wound up selling them to Pez cuz my feets just couldn't take the stiffness.

Ted

edit* - mind you, the three 'catagories' of blade shapes I've posted are separated by mere cm's. eg. Short-fat fins are about 2-3 cm shorter than the medium catagory, and ~1-2 cm wider.
 
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good one ted..

can we have smillar table for performance and applications purpose soon after all testing resulted?
 
Yes, my feet are widely known for their non-Nancy-ness -- among other things :yack
 
POOL TEST

All right, I just got back from the pool and have some initial observations.

I took my C4-40’s and my Sporasub radical’s with me as a base line, since those are the two pairs of fins I use the most, and also brought along the Special fin’s Classic (hard) and Kelpie (medium).

I swam all kinds of laps: above, below, dolphin, flutter, frog kicking, with neck weights and without. I originally tried to use my Heart rate monitor, but it wouldn’t read on my wrist with my hands outstretched over my head, so I just counted kicks and tried to quantify how tired I was at the end- using an old math equation I learned from the higher-ups at Enron.

I made some observations, which may be mine alone, and everyone else has the right to believe something different, but at least I won’t give you the whitewashed Skin-Diver review.

The first thing I noticed was: “Who the heck rated the hardness on these fins?” The Classic hard's were buttery soft and the Kelpie Mediums felt every bit as stiff, in the water, as Ted’s Pro Hard’s. I switched them back and forth many times and the Kelpie’s are significantly harder than the Classic’s.

The next thing I noticed was that I really liked the Kelpies. I haven’t tried the C4-30s yet, but right now, I am ready to throw the old Sporasub Radical’s up on Ebay and keep the Kelpies for myself.

Another thing I noticed was that my C4-40’s absolutely suck for frog kicking. I know I have done some sculling kicks when I use them in the lakes, but I guess I never actually tried to swim an entire lap with them before by just frog-kicking. I think that it must have to do with the very large rubber side rails that run all the way down the length of the fins. That being said, the 40’s were still the most powerful fin of the bunch- by far.

Back to the Kelpies- if you think I am jumping around like a kid off his Ritalin your not too far off. They were the best for frog kicking, followed by the Radical’s and then the Classics. The blade had a nice arch to it when I kicked and they weren’t so wide that I knocked my feet together.

The Classics are what I would call a “Price Point” fin. They are for someone who wants to move up from plastic blades, but don’t have the coin for a Kelpie, or other carbon fiber bladed fin. They made the most noise of any fin while surface swimming. They were so wide that I knocked my feet together quite a bit-, which didn’t happen with the Kelpie’s, or the Radical’s. They also seemed underpowered for underwater swimming- if they really were “hard’s” like the sticker says. Lastly,hey were the least efficient fins of the bunch.

Now, having said all of that, they are still a BIG jump up from a plastic fin and at $110 Euros they come in at HALF the price of a pair of Kelpies. If money were an issue, they would be worth looking at. They were very light on the feet, so light I had even thought about some of those fin weights which I have never had to use with any of my other fins- even with a 6mm wetsuit. Still, they are HALF the price of a pair of Kelpies.

Sorry for the long post, where has Iya been, but I wanted to write it all out before I forgot about something.

Anyway, come to Freedive-A-Palooza this summer and try them all out for yourself. You just might like them, realize I am totally full of it, and decide to buy them- so I don’t have to pay for shipping back to Estonia.

Jon
 
Re: POOL TEST

Originally posted by Jon
The next thing I noticed was that I really liked the Kelpies. I haven’t tried the C4-30s yet, but right now, I am ready to throw the old Sporasub Radical’s up on Ebay and keep the Kelpies for myself. Jon


Wait 'till you try the Kelpie Hards and then there's the Hybrids! :inlove
 
Re: POOL TEST

Originally posted by Jon
the Kelpie Mediums felt every bit as stiff, in the water, as Ted’s Pro Hard’s.

Jon, would you qualify this similar stiffnes to my fins before or after I switched them to the sporasub pockets? When you tried them at Devil's Lake, they were in the Omers; at hockey they were in the Sporas.

Svencakes,
What say you about the shape of the hybrids vs. the classics. Same cut (minus the angle)? And what about the Matrix length/width? Was my crude chart accurate, or do I need correcting?

Ted "the sledge"
 
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