I have just started practicing with a stripper deck but suddenly the deck is not stripping out all the stripped cards smoothly as they seem to be catching other cards and staying in the deck.This happens when I have about half the deck stripped.
Has anyone else encountered this problem and if so do you have any suggestions.

BARRY

Could be the quality of the deck or the pressure you are using in gripping. There are some cheap quality stripper decks out there that do not have smooth edges. It might just need a little fanning powder too, that helps cards slide. A small amount of talcum powder will do the job for you as well if that is the problem.

There is a "touch" to using the deck and it takes a while to develop, you may just be experiencing that. It is a pretty light touch.

Thanks very much

Unfortunately, the talcum powder of which Father Photius speaks is very difficult to come by these days. Most of it was pulled off the market when the manufacturers started getting sued for exposing customers to powered talc, a crushed rock with respiratory problems similar to asbestos linked to it. Instead, cornstarch has replaced it. But what you really want is neither; it is called zinc stearate (magicians call it fanning powder) and it really works the best on cards, although I don't recommend breathing the dust any more than you have to. So far it's not on the list of dangerous consumer products, but one never knows.

Zinc Stearate is fanning powder. It is great for fanning cards. But, In personally hate it for doing sleight of hand with cards.

They used to use it on babies years ago.

Yeah, babies are really difficult to shuffle and deal. Try to double lift a pair of twins some time.

You make me laugh Spellbinder. Anyway, the only problem I have with my Stripper deck is sometimes catching a unreversed card along with the stripped card, but pulling em out a bit slower helps with that.

I have now tried some fanning powder but although the cards fan beautifully they tend to stick even more when trying to strip out !!!


BARRY

Without resorting to Talc, I'd erpxeriment with the angle of your hands when you make the stripping motion (no comments please ) Also, have you experimented with the amount of pressure you are applying with your fingers?

You can always go to the Dollar Store and get another deck of stripper cards. The abundance of them should make you wonder whether you really should be using any of the trick decks you find in a Dollar Store, even if yours are "professionally made."

Well, it's too late now, but you should have never put fanning powder on them.
As others have indicated fanning powder has its uses, i.e. fanning, but otherwise it is detrimental to most normal card work.

The usual solution when one is having trouble with a stripper deck is to simply turn the deck up on a long side with the faces towards you and tap it against the table in a squaring action. Then lower it face down towards yourself.

This has the advantage of making the side of the deck facing the spectators flush and smooth--- while the side facing the perfomer will have the flared edges of the tapered cards more pronounced thus making it easier for the thumbs to strip out the correct reversed cards.

This is the same reason that one should occasionaly tap one end of a Svengali deck against the table to make the long and short cards more pronounced at the opposite end of the deck.

Cheers

How long have you had the deck? They get greasy and mucky like and other dcks and only have a finite life. You'll be utterly astonished by the quality of your second deck, even if it's poorly cut, simply because the cards are fresh.

To use the fanning/talc powder:

get yourself a shoebox
put in your cards
put in some powder ("dust" (as your local patisserie for what they do with powdered sugar on some choclate cakes) the top lightly)
put lid on shoebox
give it a few shakes (keep lid on:)
wait for dust to settle
take out the cards - leaving any dust inside for use next time

Enjoy

I have a bicycle stripped deck I just got, was included in an Oil and Water routine I bought. I am a beginner, but this using a stripper deck seems like it should be simple for a beginner, but it isn't. The effect involves needing to strip the entire deck, half the cards one way and half the other, so this isn't like looking to strip a single card. I seem to only be able to get this 3 out of 10 times.

I do understand that varying the pressure has an impact, neither too hard or too soft seems to work. The just right amount seems to be very hard to get on a consistent basis.

I do understand that going slower seems to help, but to make thie effect work the way routine works, I can't be doing this so slow that it draws attention to what I'm doing.


I have found that I get better results if I have a a couple "fat end" cards on the very top and the very bottom of the desk.

I'm interested in powdering the cards, but afraid that I'll mess them up and then I have destroyed part of the routine I bought. Also, the Oil and Water part of the routine involves rough v/s smooth so I'm worried I might transfer some of the powder to my rough cards that might not work so well afterward.

I'll keep practicing, but it's discouraging to keep practicing this full deck strip and miss 1-4 cards each time over and over again. I'd appreciate any sage advice. Thank you.

There are different stripper decks. Some are much easire to strip out. You might want an easier, more pronounced version, to make your job easier. There is always a solution .

Depending on the trick, try stripping the cards out in a tabled running cut action. If you don’t get them all the first time, repeat the tabled running cut until you get all stripped out.

Im using the same stripper deck for a long time now. I think its all about production quality and excercising.
The grip is in my opinion the most important thing.

May be people forget, that some things need practice.

Thanks for all the help above. Three things seem to matter. The cut of the stripper deck--how angled is it? Sometimes they are made too subtle for regular, practical use.
Next, the grip. And not trying to strip them out all at once. You can use a hindu shuffle to gradually strip cards out. There you go. You don't want to depend on a tabled move because your performances would be too limited. Follow these things and even a stripper could use this deck.