Straighten warped/oil-canning fiber fins

[wallybanger]

Hey guys,

So I bought a pair of imersion E-fiber fins which I liked immensely until they sat in my dive bag over night and got a warp in them. It's in both fins. It's extremely small but it is enough that my god damn fins snap and pop under water which SUCKS for spearfishing.

I have been trying to get a hold of imersion but they are not replying to my emails which makes me want to spit and swear. I am leaving for mexico on Friday and because imersion has been taking their sweet ass time, I am running out of options. Really not the customer service I was hoping for.



Anyway, I'm wondering if I can heat them up with a heat gun and try to straighten the F#%king things out. Anyone have any ideas??

 

[Mr. X]

Oh man, that noise sucks. I guess the moral of the story is don't buy Imersion gear if you want customer support/quiet fins (and don't leave your fins in your dive bag ).

Might be worth buying an inexpensive pair of plastic-blade spearo fins (or blades to fit you foot pockets), in you can find them in time, (e.g. Beuchat Competitions, Seacsubs &, I think, Omer have a less expensive spearing fin now but I forget the name).

Sorry, don't know much about -re-shaping carbon - others may do (Foxfish? SettingSteel? Spaghetti?). I gather you can bend them by leaving them in your dive bag though - perhaps you could recreate those conditions somehow but apply a flattening force?

 

[wallybanger]

Oh man, that noise sucks. I guess the moral of the story is don't buy Imersion gear if you want customer support/quiet fins (and don't leave your fins in your dive bag ).

Might be worth buying an inexpensive pair of plastic-blade spearo fins (or blades to fit you foot pockets), in you can find them in time, (e.g. Beuchat Competitions, Seacsubs &, I think, Omer have a less expensive spearing fin now but I forget the name).

Sorry, don't know much about -re-shaping carbon - others may do (Foxfish? SettingSteel? Spaghetti?). I gather you can bend them by leaving them in your dive bag though - perhaps you could recreate those conditions somehow but apply a flattening force?

I think the biggest problem was leaving them in my bag They are fiberglass, not carbon. I'm gonna try the heat gun and see if I can straighten em out. I have a set of plastic Cressis that I'm gonna take with me but they are a little tight.... and plastic.... god, plastic fins suck....

If anyone has any ideas, I would LOVE to hear them...

 

[wallybanger]

Fixed!

F#CK YEAH!!!!

After doing a bunch of reading on the interwebz I was reacquainted with a product that is good for SO many things... plain old hot water

I figured that somehow heat would be useful for allowing the fins to regain their natural shape and I was right!

I was just kinda shooting from the hip and everything came together. No more oil-canning

You'll need a cookie sheet with reasonably high sides or a BIG pot with a lot of water in it. I used the sheet because it was handy and I didn't know what I was doing.

Get the water nice and hot but turn the heat down or off before sticking your fins in there. The water will keep the pan at 100*C but as soon as the water is forced out from between the fin and the pan, the temps will skyrocket and you could really damage it.

The fins were probably only in the water for 5sec or less and they went nice and soft. The dents came out like they weren't even there! Just let them rest on a nice neutral surface or hanging out so they cool nice and straight.

NO MORE OIL CANNING

Erik, if only we had known about this on the crud boat.... I could have boiled a pot of sea water and fixed um up lickety split.

 

[manalive!]

I was going to suggest hot water.

I design printed circuit boards for a living, these are also usually made of fibre glass. The boards can experience problems, namely de-lamination, through thermal shocking i.e. suddenly introducing them to a significant change in temperature. So I'd be very wary of doing this too often (though I guess you're planning on never having to do this again). Instead I would introduce them to warm to hot water and then top up the water with hotter water. From memory, the glass transitional temperature (Tg,) which is the temperature at which the material goes soft, of fibreglass is between 120-140deg C, so you do need to get them pretty hot. I'd also let them cool naturally, rather than dipping them in cold water.

Anyway, you sorted out the fins, so this is all pretty much pointless. :duh

Enjoy your trip :wave

Paul

 

[wallybanger]

I was going to suggest hot water.

I design printed circuit boards for a living, these are also usually made of fibre glass. The boards can experience problems, namely de-lamination, through thermal shocking i.e. suddenly introducing them to a significant change in temperature. So I'd be very wary of doing this too often (though I guess you're planning on never having to do this again). Instead I would introduce them to warm to hot water and then top up the water with hotter water. From memory, the glass transitional temperature (Tg,) which is the temperature at which the material goes soft, of fibreglass is between 120-140deg C, so you do need to get them pretty hot. I'd also let them cool naturally, rather than dipping them in cold water.

Anyway, you sorted out the fins, so this is all pretty much pointless. :duh

Enjoy your trip :wave

Paul

Never Pointless! You can never have too much information... and that is an extremely good point about delaming.... I hadn't even thought about that. The only thing that these fins may have in their favour is that they are so thin they aren't going to heat at different rates through the layers... not enough to be a big problem anyway... at least that is what my deluded brain is telling me.

Thanks for the reply!

 

[Mr. X]

Excellent wallybanger. Glad to read that you've got it sorted & thanks for sharing. I'd give you some rep. but for some reason (bug?) all of the controls are missing from your post when I view it (new UI?) .

 

[Ronioc]

interwebz to the rescue, nice macgyver fix