Geo(Offline)

Hi, just how tightly does your fin springs fit?

Mine is too tight and causing my tendon to inflame, so I need longer springs and am trying to find out what the fit should feel like.

Thanks

Sterny(Offline)

Can't believe no one else has replied to this yet, so I'll have a try. They don't need to be tight at all, since once you're in the water, the action of all the normal fin kicks (the ones that propel you forwards) act to push the fin more firmly onto your foot.

The springs need to be tight enought to keep the fins on your feet when (if!) you back kick and when you get into and out of the water, but that doesn't take much tension. Ideally you'd adjust the springs to that when your foot is in the foot pocket of the fin in the boots you'll be using (drysuit or wetsuit booties), the spring is just slightly extended beyond its shortest 'rest' length.

Best way to check is to just try it and see what feels right. Some kinds of spring straps can be adjusted to loosen the spring off, but others can't, so you might be lucky, or this may be about to cost you the price of another set.

HTH

David

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limeyx(Offline)

I've been wondering a similar thing since I tried my wetsuit fins on the d/suit and they seemed too floppy (so now I need to deal with 2 sets of fins).

I used the "shake it all about" test (put the fin on and waggle my feet like crazy. If they stay on then I call it good)

I think my d/suit ones are a touch too tight to get on, but feel great once they are on. I also noticed that the fin pockets were slightly smaller on this set of jets compared to the others. Just a couple of mm but it does make a difference.

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Sterny(Offline)

I had another thought - if the boots or socks you use with the fins are compressible (e.g. neoprene boots, any boots which are too big for your feet or socks which trap air at the surface and tend to compress down a bit at depth), then at depth they may be smaller than at the surface. Since you don't need fin strap tension so much at depth, it doesn't seem like a major problem to me, but having the fins waggle about on your foot is annoying, so a touch more than the minimum possible tension might not hurt if this is the case.

__________________
"I thought I had a great idea today, but it never really took off. In fact, it didn't even get on the runway. I guess you could say it exploded in the hangar." - Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

BDH(Offline)

I made my own custom springs for my XL jets and mighty fine they are too, anyway i measured them up for use with wetsuit booties but were probably a little small so all i done was stretch the spring and now fit a treat in both wet and drysuit boots. Maybe worth ago, what springs do you have by the way?

BDH

montyg(Offline)

I made my springs to fit my drysuit boots which means they ended up too big for diving with a wetsuit.

My solution was to find really thick wetsuit booties (Typhoon 6.5mm) which also has a ridge at the back which helps the spring stay on.

rgds
monty