I have the hardest time working with a palmo or pass through dye tube in that unless I use 12" silks it is so hard for me to stuff them in the tube. In addition, they never come out smoothly. Laflin on his Palmo dvd uses 18" silks with ease. Struggling to push in silks is not exactly great showmanship. Any suggestions? Thanks.

There are lots of different sizes of dye tubes. But like you for the smaller ones I use 12" silks. Sometimes to get the same effect as a dye tube I use a hank ball with out the string or loop. Having loaded a 18" silk into it you can push in another silk into it and by pushing it to one side it sort of causes a circular motion and rotates the bottom silk to the top and you can make the switch very smoothly. Then you steal away the hank ball and you are clean.

An alternative is to use 18" diamond cuts. They look like 24" squares but only take the space of a 12" square.

Bob Sanders
Magic By Sander

PS --- Remember that silks are only measured by the hemmed edge. The good diamond cuts have all four edges the same size. (The other types are also called seventy-five cent silks for a reason! Don't over spend!)

I use a standard size palmo and have no problem getting two 18" silks inside. I wonder how thick the silks you are using are? That might be a consideration. Also, make sure they are not a silk 'blend' with some material like polyester or rayon as the unknown factor.

Alternately, make your own palmo style gimmick which can be larger.

As Neal said, you might want to find out what type of silks you are using. If you cannot get two 18" silks in a palmo you may have some very heavy silks. If you get 5-6 momme silks they should fit.

I made a set of half dyed up for myself. I used Billy's instructions on making the gimmick out of "25 Years Wiser". But I made my gimmicks out of brass tubing and actually cut down the size from Billy's gimmick and still had plenty of room for the silks. I use 15" 6 momme silks, as did Billy. They give me plenty of room to still get my fingers in the gimmick to cop it out. The 6 momme silk gives a very good color saturation and holds up very well to all the poking and tugging.

BTW, I use red/yellow as I feel it shows up better. I know Billy used red/white but I feel part that was because he developed this routine in the era of black and white television.

Richard

I too made my own, at least as far as dyeing my own silks. I agree with Richard that 15" will work well and a palmo will hold them without problems.

How do you know the thickness of the silks? I have gotten all my silks through dealers like the Magic Warehouse, Trickshop, and so forth and have no idea how thick they are.

6 momme is what Billy and I have used. 8 momme makes it a little too tight.

Richard

Richard, just curious...how do you go about dying the silks? I received this from Abbott's not long ago and am really enjoying it, but may wish to use different colors in the future.

Dyeing silks is not an easy task. I have six different dye types I use depending on the color and process needed to use.

Do some research on silk painting and it will give a good undertstanding of how to paint the silks whatever colors you wish. Billy McComb explains in "25 years Wiser" how he dyed his silks. Hint: Do the half silk first and when you have one you like then do the solid colors.

I have made them in a variety of colors for people for different seasons or special events.

Richard

I've always dyed my own for this effect using the Billy Mc Comb method, but really think someone should take the project to a proper silk screen operation and make a 1/2 dyed silk that is 36" or 45" square. That could then be cut and hemmed to 15" 18" or 24" sizes and supply the needs of the fraternity.

45" square would be the logical size but I am not sure that the cost of setting up the screen, etc. could ever be recouped in sales. And some guys like the ragged edge look of the tie dyed effect.

But an interesting idea.

Richard

Who was the manufacturer of the 1/2 dyed silk where the edge was not nearly so 'ragged' as it would genuinely be if you used the Mc.Comb method, but rather it was screen printed in such a sway as to appear almost scalloped ...like a wave form almost?

It might have Mystique silks from Oklahoma. They are out of business now. I have hand painted them wavey, straight and ragged edges. Again it is all what you want. Some guys like the crisp line. I prefer the ragged.

Richard

I prefer a fading of the red side into the white side, the way I imagine it would look if you really stopped the dying process half-way. Since no one sells them this way, if you want it, you will have to do it yourself. The key is to not feel you have make the red side extend exactly half-way, as long as the corner is bright red and the opposite corner is bright white (or whatever).

Thanks for the advice Richard! I'll look into it. I'd also like to pick up a few dozen sets of your flowers because they're gorgeous! I need to sell a kidney first but once I'm in recovery I'll be calling you.

Spellbinder, I think most of the silks made fade into the other color. It is not a gradient shading but the concentration of the dye is less as it moves to the white or other color. Abbott's, Viking Magic and myself are three that comes to mind right away.

Richard

This contributes nothing to the thread, but I misread the title of the thread as "Working with a die tube or PIANO"...

Clinton, if you can palm a piano, you will officially be my hero. You'll be using the most ridiculous method ever created for a color changing silk routine, but when the climax comes and you produce an entire piano at your fingertips, it's going to bring down the house. I say you market this effect now before anyone else can claim it.