I know a guy how has this ZYLON stuff: and he thinks its extremely good for "floaters". I may pick up a sample .

Text from AD:
- Zylon is about 1.5 denier and if you’re careful it can pick up 60 grams---
Sounds incredible !!!

Zylon does break up in UV light, so does Kevlar. NASA was trying out the Kevlar and it started to break down in 40 days; whereas, zylon was breaking down in 30 days.

Remember, UV light is not indoors. It will not affect our performances, even if you’re outside it won’t alter your work. It takes time for it to break down, it is not instant. Anyway, you would break the thread before UV got to it.

Windows absorb UV light, so if you are in a room that is full of sunshine, there is no UV present, I would not suggest working in these conditions anyway.

Who wants to perform thread effects in broad daylight anyway? The sun will make any thread visible. Shady, low light areas and indirect light are the target areas. Working outside in direct sunlight is insane.

Nobody should worry about UV. I use a fresh piece of thread per performance anyway, unless I know I can get away with the same piece.

I am glad to see extrememagi.com is working with us, by making different packages for different needs. Yes it does seem expensive, but I am sure it takes time to make each bundle. And that is what you might be paying for. The shipping costs are great. I think the handling is in the main price. It seems to be based on the total shipping/handling. I remember how expensive Kevlar was when it first was released. Compared to those prices extreme magi is reasonable. $25 for 50 feet is not bad, and their shipping is really reasonable. The 15 foot package is 40 cent shipping and handling. Based on that, the handling fee is in the main price.

If it was not for extreme magi, nobody would know about zylon for a while. Yes, we knew something like this existed, but they are making is possible to own. We should give them credit.

Dealers are selling five loops for 15 dollars, and we buy them. Your talking about a couple feet of elastic and we are ok with that. Yet we bitch about the zylon prices. With one purchase of zylon you have hundreds of performances, go figure. I meant to post this here, but some how it was posted somewhere else.

Just ordered the sample package. I'll give it an objective review after I receive it and float some cards and coins.

Mentalcase,

If you are referring to me in your post, I plead guilty. The elastic IT ("dorlastan") at one time was able to be purchased on ebay for $4.99 and 5.99 (plus about $5.00 S&H) for a large spool. Brown Beauty sold me a spool here on the Café for a very similar price about 4 months ago. This stuff is NOT expensive. Thousands and thousands of feet per roll.

Granted, ready-made loops are labor intensive and the $15.00 price might be satisfactory for some. However, even that price is too high; the creme of the crop (the Yigal Mesika loops) go for $10.00 for 5 loops and, if purchased 3 packages at a time, some dealers sell the 3-pack for $25.00.

However, what I object to is someone buying a large spool of an IT thread and selling a minute portion off of the roll for an outlandish price. I'm curious as to the price for a spoll of Zylon and the number of feet in a roll. I am researching these questions as we speak and I'll post the results that I learn. It is a simple matter to unroll 150 feet off of a 5000 foot spool, wrap it around a playing card and package it in a small pay envelope. So the question becomes is the asking price reasonable based upon the original cost per spool, the preparation costs and the S&H costs? And remember, the dealer in the case of Zylon is NOT separating the "1000s of strands" from the single Zylon fiber, he is merely wrapping 150' of the single fiber thread onto a holder (like a playing card) and whipping these babies out as fast as his nimble little fingers can fly.

Until I obtain the exact pricse for a spool of Zylon, lets assume that there are 5000 linear feet of single strand Zylon per spool and that a single spool costs $100.00. That calculates out to $0.02 (2 cents) per linear foot, or $3.00 for 150 feet. Add in a fair rate of return and S&H for this 150 foot sample size and I think that a person would be hard pressed to justify as reasonable anything higher than $10.00/150' sample size. As Randwill (Cafe member) asks: "Has anyone come up with a ("real world") source for this Zylon thread?"

I know that you are also supposedly paying for "the secret" but, what secret is being sold when a brand name thread is being advertised and sold? The Internet is the information engine that should quickly bring prices in line. I have very little patience with the dealers and eBayers who sell 50-100 feet of IT for $10 when all they are doing is buying a 5000' roll of WN for $3.95 and then wrapping a small sample onto a playing card and selling it for the $10.00 price. I have no problem paying a dealer a fair price; what I object to is paying a price far out of proportion to what a reasonable rate of return (including the selling of the "secret") should be.

Heck, at these prices, I'm thinking of going to a Zylon source and getting into the business of selling this stuff. At $10.00/150' sample, I should be able to sell a lot of samples and supplement my income quite nicely.

Mike

I agree, it takes time to make loops. I take about 1 minute to make a loop. I remember wrapping up some embroidery thread for my grandmother a while back, and 100 foot piece wrapped on a bobbin took about 10 minutes to do. Maybe I am slow at this.

If extreme magi used say 10,000 feet a week, the distributer would give them a better price, then say 10,000 feet every three months. How much thread could they sell any way, 1,000 feet a month? The demand is not that big any way. I do not see any other companies selling it.

I am sure if the sales picked up they would drop their prices, because the distributors would cut them a break.

They could of been sneaky and sold it under a differnt name rather then zylon. Nike sneakers sell for upto 150 dollars or more, but they cost about 20 dollars to make, if that. Yet they sell.

I guess we will wait and see, I am sure prices will drop, if sales go up.

All this talk about Zylon has been very enlightening. I received the same email, and also thought the price was daunting. But I'll go for the sample package.

Also, whoever pointed out the facts that the thread would most not likely be exposed to UV light when used for floating, and you break off a fresh piece with each performance anyway was right on the mark.

I agree that UV deterioration will not be a problem for magicians as it was with the police vests.

If this is as strong and invisible as they claim, we may indeed be onto something hot here folks.
Posted: Feb 26, 2005 9:21pm

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Quote:
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On 2005-02-24 18:51, thegreatbarusky wrote:
http://web-japan.org/nipponia/nipponia20......e05.html

The above link came up in a google search for Zylon thread

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Holy cow! I looked at some of their products and I was awed! The Japanese are so extremely diligent and inventive. It is just amazing!

Yep, Doug. That's the page that also got me "started". Look at the spool of Zylon thread on that web page. I'm just wondering how many feet are on that spool and how much a single spool would cost. Common sense would say "not very much" otherwise no one could afford any of the bullet-proof vests that are being manufactured these days.

What I'd also like to find out is how easy it is to srrip out a single thread from the "single" fiber on the spool. I'm waiting for someone who is currently using Zylon for IT to review the Zylon for strength, ease of use and "invisibility", etc.

Mike

No doubt they are jacking the prices up a lot. Maybe we'll never know.

There are dealers selling right now Kevlar for 10 dollars. They sell 30 feet with 120 strands. If anything that is expensive. 15 feet of Zylon for 10 dollars with about 1,000 strands is cheap.

Do a search for Kevlar invisible thread, you will see the high Kevlar prices dealers are selling it for, more so then Zylon from Extreme Magi. Boy magicians are cheap, but at the same time they will spend a couple hundred dollars for a cheap gimmick that cost 5 dollars to make. With no questions asked. OK, I confess I am cheap too and have found my self buying expensive gimmicks that are only a few dollars to make. I understand you are buying the secret too, but most of the time the price is still not justifiable.

I am just thankfull that they brought Zylon to my attention, and I love it. So I spent a little more then I should, big deal. It’s not like I need a new package every week. What I bought will last me years.

I got my package of Zylon today and can safely say that the company delivers as promised. The thread, however I find to be less than impressive. Fist it is gold n color which makes it difficult to strip out. That would be a minor problem if in fact this thread was really "supermans thread" as Kjellstrom stated. I have some wolly nylon that seems to be far superior to the Zylon. I sripped out 2 strands and they seemed to break with little encouragement. I fail to see the worth here.

This is so typical of so many people on this forum -- always ready to rush to judgment before even bothering to click on a link and get a few facts.

If I assumed that every financial planner was like the fellows who hound me in my e-mails, I would never invest in anything.

Thank you so much for this, Flo. I know you made the above post ages ago, but this thread has only recently become active again and therefore I have only just noticed it.

I ordered a reel from Janome (above) for £6-95 and received it within 2 days - certainly enough IT there for 2 lifetimes, I think!!
The strength and (lack of) visibility of this thread are perfect for IT use.

Thanks again - This is why I continue to visit The Magic Café; not to read 15 pages of people blathering on about waiting by their letterbox for the next levitating device(!)

You must be doing something wrong, the zylon is much more stronger then the nylon. Some people stretch the truth and make it seem that zylon is unbreakable. The truth is one strand can pick up about 60 grams, nylon can not pick up even 15 grams. If you have an easy time snapping the thread by applying more then 60 grams of preassure, I am impressed :o) You must still practice the same cautions as you would with your normal invisible thread, but may add a little more weight to it.

Well, I received the Zylon thread sample package that I ordered last week. The following is an unbiased review on what I received:

The "thread" arrived wrapped around a plastic card which is pretty standard packaging; however, I was suprised to find that the "thread" itself was blonde in color greatly resembling a woman's fine hair believe it or not. Anyway, I was able to strip a single strand from the master with little effort but one thing that I noticed was that the strand was exremely buoyant and floated in the air which made it a little more difficult for me to secure the ends.

Afterward, I attempted to spin a playing card on it and that worked about half as well as nylon due to the lack of elasticity which actually aids in the hummer cards success. Also, I found the thread to be about as strong as kevlar and equally as rigid which makes it less forgiving when stressed in my professional opinion.

I snapped it pretty quick with what I was doing but in all fairness that doesn't mean that someone else might not find it ideal or practical under a different application. I will stick with nylon and anyone whom is interested in experimenting with what I have can PM me their mailing address and I will mail this out to the first one who contacts me.

Turk has contacted me for the Zylon. Its his.

The cool thing is the strand of zylon is just as strong as kevlar, maybe a little stronger. But the thing is this strand of zylon is much thinner then the kevlar. They both balance out in strength, but the zylon is thinner.

It may be stronger than some of the other threads, but it is extremely difficult to secure and strip out because it keeps floating away from you as you try to "catch" it. Coupled with the fact that it clings to any piece of dry skin on your finger or hand, makes it less than satisfactory unless you want to spend the day trying to get a couple of strands of thread. In my humble opinion......give me wooly nylon any day of the week. It is inexpensive and does the job as well as any commercial thread on the market......including Kevlar.

I have been reading this post with great interest. Of course there will be differing opinions on subjects of `whats best'. But I am new to the `invisible threads' as due to that fact, I need good info. I am going to try the wooly nylon first and see how I like it. I have already tried Wal-mart but found none. I will hit the fabric stores this afternnon.
But I also would like to try the other types of threads metioned here, which brings up an idea...
If someone buys a lot(like a large spool) of these advertized `threads', what is the possiblility of us beginners BUYING a couple feet from off the spool to see if we like it.
I will even make the first offer, if I find the wooly nylon reasonably priced, I will send anyone requesting a sample a small piece for free to try (total cost would be a postage stamp sent to me). I don't know how this will work out or how practical. We'll just see... Doc

You're welcome multiply!


I know that a lot of people here don't like them, anyway, I tried this one:

http://www.penguinmagic.com/product.php?ID=563

and for me it's a little bit less visible than woolly nylon but it's a little bit harder to strip and it's expansive so I will stay with woolly nylon