Hi all,
I have had a pair of Cressi Garas for around four years now. It was basically what was available to me at the time I bought them but having wide feet they have (literally) been a pain to use and caused me a some bad cramps along the way. I still wanted a bit more life out of them, so decided to try to expand the foot pockets myself. Basically, I heated them with a heating gun and expanded them with a tool that I think shoemakers use to expand shoes. I found both the gun and the expansion tool cheap on Taobao - the Chinese equivalent to Amazon (I live in Shanghai).
And... it worked! I expanded them around 5-8 mm in width at different points at the front half of the pocket and though it doesn't sound like much, I no longer have cramps using them.
Since the modification, I have been in the water around five long days with a lot of surface swimming and they are not showing any signs of coming apart.
What I did was to put the fins on and take a hammer to the side of them and hit to identify where they needed expansion and then marked those areas.
I then heated the rubber locally and when the rubber was soft I started expanding. I felt the rubber with a screwdriver and when it was about to melt, I started expanding. One warning though - the light grey rubber melts earlier than the black and actually cracked a little bit, but as said, not trouble yet for me in those areas. Also, though you want to heat locally, I think it is important to move the heating gun all the time to spread the heat over that area.
My choice was between dumping the fins or trying to make them work as I couldn't have passed them on as I don't know any freedivers in China, so it was an easy one.
I'll leave you with a few pics:
I have had a pair of Cressi Garas for around four years now. It was basically what was available to me at the time I bought them but having wide feet they have (literally) been a pain to use and caused me a some bad cramps along the way. I still wanted a bit more life out of them, so decided to try to expand the foot pockets myself. Basically, I heated them with a heating gun and expanded them with a tool that I think shoemakers use to expand shoes. I found both the gun and the expansion tool cheap on Taobao - the Chinese equivalent to Amazon (I live in Shanghai).
And... it worked! I expanded them around 5-8 mm in width at different points at the front half of the pocket and though it doesn't sound like much, I no longer have cramps using them.
Since the modification, I have been in the water around five long days with a lot of surface swimming and they are not showing any signs of coming apart.
What I did was to put the fins on and take a hammer to the side of them and hit to identify where they needed expansion and then marked those areas.
I then heated the rubber locally and when the rubber was soft I started expanding. I felt the rubber with a screwdriver and when it was about to melt, I started expanding. One warning though - the light grey rubber melts earlier than the black and actually cracked a little bit, but as said, not trouble yet for me in those areas. Also, though you want to heat locally, I think it is important to move the heating gun all the time to spread the heat over that area.
My choice was between dumping the fins or trying to make them work as I couldn't have passed them on as I don't know any freedivers in China, so it was an easy one.
I'll leave you with a few pics:
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