Force Fin Designs

[coldwaterlloyd]

Now they are starting to look like something , what is the timeline to this point ?

 

[Bob Evans]

Now they are starting to look like something , what is the timeline to this point ?

1971 to 1981 to final Force Fin , Then it took another several years to make all xs,s, m, ml,xl,xxl,xxxl Force fins..then other designs like the OPS, which took 3 years to make for JMC..SD-1 fours years to make. Each design cost around $60.000 to create. Pictured OPS and SD-1 Military Force Fin. Proud to say all made in the USA. Never left and never will.

 

[coldwaterlloyd]

Way cool Bob , I never thought about just how much went into the final designs , I await the tan delta story with great anticipation …. LL

 

[Bob Evans]

Way cool Bob , I never thought about just how much went into the final designs , I await the tan delta story with great anticipation …. LL

I made so many fiberglass molds at least 10 production molds per size if not more, here you can see a few out of production that need cleaning. We had a trailer out back, since our operation for sales went into the 28 Anacapa Street office. I have hundreds of molds in storage and will be selling them off at around $100.00 each and signed and dated. Each mold made thousands of Force Fins. Here is our hero Dr, Nuytten with his top side of mold with our lion logo.

 

[Bob Evans]

Small world to have found a old diving buddy ( Made dive hats for Aquadyne in SB) was now running the Creative Urethanes just across the street from our 28 Anacpa St. work shop. Here you see Larry Schultz and Jimmy Grey discussing how to improve our molds for their production line, Another photo of my sister Jeanne and Husband Dana Rosen. A final image of me working in their plant with our molds being poured. No mask, learn real quick about silcone spray as a mold release.

 

[Bob Evans]

Part lines took hours if not days. Here Jimmy is viewing his clay work. We both shared this slow and tedious process. A good parting line helped in later trimming the Poly-Urethane part. Here is a quick video of me claying up the OPS Force Fin blade for the Ocean Futures Dive Team/ JMC

 

[Bob Evans]

Jimmy Gray, camel hanging while working on Force Fin foot pocket and a BUD, all American team. At the time we were spraying a tooling gel coat on the molds. My least "love" was spraying inside the foot cavity. The spray would come right back at you and was nasty stuff. Here you can see Jimmy spraying.... Later did this job with hand coating with a camel hair brush. (copyright Bob Evans)

 

[Bob Evans]

I had one of the first Jet Fins from " Big Jim " who was VP at Scubapro at the time. Working at Dive N Surf gave me the chance to dive their new equipment. Helped with Under Water Photo's on several of their catalogs at the time. So Jet Fins have Big Ribs which still happens today on most fins. So here you can see how we started to shape low drag interal ribbing on the back side. I wanted clean water flow heading out to the flexing wing tips.

 

[Bob Evans]

After all the Force fin foot caps I pinned you think we ran a Dentist Chair. The careful placement and the thiness of the foot pocket area maded you feel like you just climbed Mount Everst, after done. Each foot pocket was expaned from XS to XXXXL. The pins allowed us to remove the foot pocket from the Fiberglass made foot pocket. It was a 3 part mold with the most amazing way of working. The problems we had were meticulousy solved...

 

[Bob Evans]

Need to back track back to my only real job at Dive N Surf,( noted I was fired 9 times.) The Dive job gave me a chance to know Robbie Meistrell, Jr. Bob's son. Together with Jim Pennington we dove almost each day into the Redondo Beach Submarine Canyon or Palos Verdes. I was able to first publish our stories. 1969. Here is one for Dive Magazine. Again due to this special family Force Fin came into life...all it takes is $$$$