|
|
Go to page [Previous] 1~2~3 | ||||||||||
mkiger Loyal user 228 Posts |
Just a thought, how humid is it where you are at? You might try putting the whole clamped mass into a 200F oven for a while. If it is moisture that might fix it, my thought is that either your glue is wrong (too thick) or you never got all of the curl out from the peeling. It can be tough with some brands. Try pressing the unglued parts after you peel them, giving them a chance to stabilize.
|
|||||||||
The Amazing Noobini Inner circle Oslo, Norway 1658 Posts |
I'm also convinced now that the curl comes from the peeling. If you peel diagonally from a corner...there the curl is. We just need to get rid of this new curl properly again before gluing. Me, I left the cards in a book under a heavy weight overnight. There was still a slight curl after the cards had been out of the book for a while. I was impatient and glued anyway.
The question then becomes how to best get rid of a peel curl. A counter-curl? When attempting to straighten the card halves back out, I have tried curling them the opposite way by either pulling them slowly a few times over a table side or by putting a card half face down on the flat desk surface, placing a metal ruler over it and pulling the cards out and up while applying light downward pressure to the ruler. The latter technique gives a stronger curl. Any hard square item will do as well as my ruler. I find that both techniques leave some marks on the surface. Although these will probably not be visible on the finished card. By the way...if curling too much, it is possible to curl the picture side as well. One just needs to place a sheet of paper over it to protect the ink side from scratching. But the peel curl will always be the way requiring a counter-curl with the picture side up. Still...after counter-curling, the card is about as unflat as any regular old card and not like a crisp new one. I think that if one is to press it between two surfaces without applying anything but pressure, a lot more time is needed than one day. Again, I am reminded of old leaves pressed in books. Leaves and flowers, unlike cards, are wet and probably become so even and flat by drying into a firm shape within the confined space. Googling flower pressing, I find that an iron or a microwave is sometimes used. This is intriguing. Moisture is also applied when ironing clothes, and baryte paper photos are moist when they go into the heated press. This, I believe, is a clue. But I have no iron or microwave. Wouldn't it be great to be able to finish the card in one session? P.S. Disregard what I said earlier about countering a curl by gluing it to a curl in the opposing direction. That was nonsense.
"Talk about melodrama... and being born in the wrong part of the world." (Raf Robert)
"You, my friend, have a lot to learn." (S. Youell) "Nonsensical Raving of a lunatic mind..." (Larry) |
|||||||||
mkiger Loyal user 228 Posts |
When you peel the card, how exactly are you doing it? I peel with the thin side down and try not to curl it too much. I "reverse curl" with the edge of a utility knife blade, stroking the card with the blade rather than moving the card over the blade, more or less combing the curl out. I have a lot more control over problem areas that way. This also thins the card, and smooths it.
I do not remember if this has been mentioned, what brand of cards are you using? Are they fresh from the box, or used? Have you tried any other brand? |
|||||||||
martini Special user delta, pennsylvania 548 Posts |
Greetings Noobini,
You are on the right track about working the curl the opposite way, but avoid a very sharp edge. Watch the DVD, and you will see what I do to take the curl out. Once you do this, clamp the parts up overnight, and they should be fine for gluing and aligning with the jig that is shown on the DVD. That is why I put the DVD together to give all the details to make it easy to learn. From what you have been mentioning, I am guessing that you may not have the DVD, as this is all covered there. As Mkiger has mentioned, the thin side must be down when peeling from the corner, thicker side being center and opposite thin uppermost. You want to peel from one corner to the other in a rolling motion. Do not just pull across giving a crease, or the crease will not come out. By rolling the hand back as shown, the card will curl, but will not crease. Then this curl can be taken out, and the parts clamped overnight. Next day, you apply your rubber cement, align the parts up against the straight edge of the jig, bring both parts side by side, and tap the joint. Now just fold one over the other, book fashion, and you have a perfect alignment. I hope this has helped some. All the Best, Marty |
|||||||||
mkiger Loyal user 228 Posts |
Hi Martini,
I saw a bit of your DVD a while back, and it looks very good. For a long time, I thought I was the only one who ever read that chapter of Expert Card Technique. Thirty years later, somebody finally puts it on video with a lot of good technique. I remember making these cards in Steve Beam's old magic shop in 1978 for some of the regulars. Not tough, but there is a knack. |
|||||||||
martini Special user delta, pennsylvania 548 Posts |
Greetings mkiger,
Thank you for the kind comment. Gosh, I have not seen Steve in years. He taped my no-sleight card in envelope and put it in Trapdoor, and then in Semi-Automatic Card Tricks (book one) when we were in Harrisburg, PA, for a M.A.E.S. convention. I have been making gaffs for so many years, being taught by the late Frank Thompson when I was just a kid, then later Alex Keal taught me quite a bit about gaffs that I had never seen before. When the opportunity to put this all down for others to learn from, I jumped on it. It really is a lost art that I did not want to see die. From all the comments I have gotten, it has been very well received. And the demand for the lecture teaching it has been growing, even after the DVD has been out for 2 years now. If you see Steve anytime soon, tell him I said hi and to give me a shout. All the Best, Marty |
|||||||||
mkiger Loyal user 228 Posts |
It is really too bad the old rub-on pips never really looked right and were such a bear to line up. I am looking at some printable decal paper in the Micro-Mark catalog, not really sure yet. I would be nice to do court cards with no seams.
Not really any firm ideas, but I just remembered something from my last job. They bought one of those bench-top laser marking/engraving units to make valve ID tags. About $30,000 or so, they let us play with it. It took Corel images and burnt them on anything you could shove into the machine. Stainless steel, brass, plastic, very fine detail. I cut the pips off an ace without going through the card. Some of the larger trophy and engraving shops are starting to use them. |
|||||||||
Jonathan P. Inner circle Belgium 1484 Posts |
I addressed the diagonal-warp-problem here.
You might be interested in the answers... http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/viewt......26&8 Jonathan. |
|||||||||
ShaunRobison Loyal user 255 Posts |
Has anyone ever thought of hot steam to split the cards?
The steam releases the glue (the gray center of the card). I have actually boiled cards, and they split apart, no problem. The problem was in drying the cards. If I can get it to work, the 2 halves would be exactly the same and no problems with thickness.. Just a work in progress, Shaun
www.shaunrobison.com
Magic and Illustrations |
|||||||||
The Amazing Noobini Inner circle Oslo, Norway 1658 Posts |
Shaun, I tried your interesting idea for splitting cards. Quite frankly, I was very unimpressed with the results. After first over-boiling (hard boiling?) a card for maybe 2 minutes, I tried one with just ten seconds in the boiling water. This was enough to split the card, but like with regular card splitting, the faces are a lot more difficult to peel off than the backs. With a wet card, this became quite impossible. The backs come off easy...the faces come apart in your hand. Just the act of getting the card out of the pot without damaging it is difficult. When one has to work at the wet corner in order to peel it, the corner receives a lot of damage. And the center piece emitted the glue (?) as a runny black mush, which got on the card face as well. Not good.
The steam approach did little for me. I couldn't get the layers apart at all by steam alone. The hot, warping card received more damage than with regular peeling. However... I have dried cards before with success. These were cards that I tried to flatten by brushing the back of each half with a paintbrush and water. (My old spray flask was broken, and I had to use a brush that left the card quite a bit wetter than I had planned.) To dry the wet halves, I simply squeezed each of them out onto a sheet of paper, face up with the flesh of my finger. This left a card that looked like it was sticker, glued onto the paper. Perfectly flat. I then put another piece of paper over it and placed this sandwich inside a book overnight. Unfortunately the card regained its original warp when dry, but there were no marks or buckles whatsoever from the water. The paper in a playing card has already been washed several times in water as part of the manufacturing process. Water does no damage in itself (unless it's a plastic-coated card, where the coating may come off in bubbles), but the boiling water makes the card too vulnerable. Wet paper can hardly support its own weight without breaking. The slightest touch damages the surface. And then, there is the running dissolved adhesives... no... For now, I think I will stick with the traditional method as taught by people like Martini. I'm always open for new thinking, but this, I'm afraid, just isn't practical. For now.
"Talk about melodrama... and being born in the wrong part of the world." (Raf Robert)
"You, my friend, have a lot to learn." (S. Youell) "Nonsensical Raving of a lunatic mind..." (Larry) |
|||||||||
Cameron Francis V.I.P. 7025 Posts |
What an interesting thread. Whenever I need a traditional gaffed card, I just buy a whole deck of them (DF/DB/BB/BF, etc.). Every once in a while I'll need a DF card that isn't mass-manufactured. Fortunately these cards are also not handled by the spectators, so I'll glue two cards back to back.
I've split a few cards, but I did it the lazy way. They still came out fine for my purposes. I simply soaked the cards for a couple of minutes in cool tap water, took them out, peeled them, let them dry, glued them with glue stick, and stuck them under a book overnight. Voila. DF cards. They're a hair thicker than regular cards, and just a tad "lumpy" for lack of a better word, but spectators don't notice this. Hey, it works for me. Although if you want the spectators to be able to handle the gaffs, then this wouldn't be a good process.
MOMENT'S NOTICE LIVE 3 - Six impromptu card tricks! Out now! http://cameronfrancismagic.com/moments-notice-live-3.html
|
|||||||||
cajmagic Loyal user Long Beach, California 235 Posts |
Sorry to ask a simple question - why do you need to make a DF?
There are whole decks out there. Unless you need absolutely a Queen of Spades and a Jack of Clubs - or some such - I think it's just easier to check the decks that are out there. What card are you making? I am sure the board can tell you exactly what deck to find it in.
Caj Brejtfus
CajMagic and the CAJ Deck of Magic Gaff Cards :BIKES: |
|||||||||
The Amazing Noobini Inner circle Oslo, Norway 1658 Posts |
I don't think anyone needs to make DF cards, but some people choose to because it is interesting, and also because it is a tradition involving craftsmanship which was nearly a lost art for a while. Still... Isn't it a good thing to be able to come up with an original trick, and make what you need for that, instead of having to rely on whatever is out there ready-made on the market, which would be exactly the same gaffs that everyone else uses?
If not, and the answer to that would be very individual, then I agree that it is a lot less hassle to go into a store and buy something which is finished. For instance... I buy takeout food from time to time, but I still value the art of cooking.
"Talk about melodrama... and being born in the wrong part of the world." (Raf Robert)
"You, my friend, have a lot to learn." (S. Youell) "Nonsensical Raving of a lunatic mind..." (Larry) |
|||||||||
CardMaker Inner circle Ludwigsburg/GERMANY 1063 Posts |
Caj,
- Not every combination of DF or DB cards are readily available. - The general DB cards are printed in bad quality (paper stock, color matching, and texture). I have had orders for handmade simple red/blue DB cards, only because of them being 100% close to any regular card. So for every need, there is source.
CardMaker/Bernd Maucksch
Finest gaffed cards for magicians |
|||||||||
cajmagic Loyal user Long Beach, California 235 Posts |
Quote:
On 2006-12-21 13:05, The Amazing Noobini wrote: Ah, yes - I remember back in the good old days, we'd travel into the big city to see the card makers. There they were with their anvil and forge, where they would pound out the odd DFs. I still remember the smell of the glue and the roughing spray. Then grandpa would take us all to get some cotton candy, and we'd take the trolley home. Thems were the days.
Caj Brejtfus
CajMagic and the CAJ Deck of Magic Gaff Cards :BIKES: |
|||||||||
Cameron Francis V.I.P. 7025 Posts |
The DF cards I needed to make were for tricks which required non-traditional DFs. Every DF deck I have bought is identical in terms of what values are on the back of each card.
For instance, once I needed a jack of diamonds/ace of diamonds. I had to make it. I do have to say, though, that the quality of most DFs and DBs I've purchased has been great. I only had one bad experience with a DB deck. The plastic coating was terrible.
MOMENT'S NOTICE LIVE 3 - Six impromptu card tricks! Out now! http://cameronfrancismagic.com/moments-notice-live-3.html
|
|||||||||
The Magic Cafe Forum Index » » Gaffed & Funky » » Making DF Cards (0 Likes) | ||||||||||
Go to page [Previous] 1~2~3 |
[ Top of Page ] |
All content & postings Copyright © 2001-2024 Steve Brooks. All Rights Reserved. This page was created in 0.04 seconds requiring 5 database queries. |
The views and comments expressed on The Magic Café are not necessarily those of The Magic Café, Steve Brooks, or Steve Brooks Magic. > Privacy Statement < |