Many years ago I purchased Chameleon Silks, and over the years have had a lot of fun with them. However, the silks are the very small (I believe 9") size. I don't know much about silk magic, so I'm hoping someone can give a recommendation for the best way to perform this with larger silks.

I've gone through old posts and have seen a couple of suggestions - some recommendations for a Palmo ball, or for the Simplex dye tube. Pop Haydn also has his gimmicks for the standard (2-way) color change. I have a couple of questions about these:
1. What size silks can I go to using either of these gimmicks? In one thread Pop thought you could maybe get two 18" silks into his gimmick which was made for a 24" silk. But it sounded like his gimmick is rather large - I like the handling of the small Chameleon Silks gimmick, so I'd be ok using 12" silks with a smaller gimmick if that made the handling a little less cozy. However, if possible, I'd like to use 18" silks. Is the Palmo ball a decent compromise?
2. How difficult are these gimmicks to use, compared to the little Chamelon Silks gimmick? If the handling needs to be significantly different, I could probably work it out, but is there a good resource available rather than me reinventing the wheel? I'm leaning towards Pop's routine or I've also heard good things about Levent's.

Thanks in advance!

Hi Cohiba!

The Palmo is ideal for 18" silks. The Simplex is good for 12".

Doug

If you don't mind making your own gimmick, you can make it any size that fits you and the silks you want to "chamele" as Fred Goode does in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxwhPIVUskU

15 inch silks would be the best choice in my opinion. I have switched all my silk manipulation and color changing effects to 15 inch silks. Rice Silk King Studios still sell them.

Do you use a Palmo or a Simplex? Also do you use the jumbo Vernet TT?

I use the Palmo by Rice, to bad they are all sold out.

I only use 12 inch with the Simplex, as that is the size it was made for.

Never used a Jumbo Vernet, as the regular fits perfectly for me. I think they they used my Thumb for their mold, it as it matches ever crease I have.

Sometimes I use extended Vernet, depending on the effect and size of silk.

It really is a super effect when properly done, isn't it? Chameleon Silks (double color changing silks) is one of my favorites and is the opener for both my small parlour (10 people and less) and close up shows.

Even two 12 inch silks in a gimmick is difficult to achieve. This is because the volume needed in the gimmick goes up as a square of the increase in silk size. So going from 9 inch to 18 inch requires 4 times the volume. The techniques used to manipulate the simplex gimmick in the Chameleon Silks routine make it difficult to increase the gimmick's diameter much, so it is the length which primarily is increased for larger silks. But this can only go so far. A gimmick for 12 inch silks will be slightly bigger in diameter and 70% longer than the 9 inch silks gimmick.

The other types of gimmicks use different handlings which don't look as "good" (clean, open, smooth) in the Chameleon Silks routine, IMO. If you really want to go bigger, using two simplex gimmicks may be preferable. Jay Scott Berry has some slick workings on how to bring gimmicks into play.

This said a hank ball or these other large gimmicks will work as described. Duane Laflin has some great DVDs on using them,

You can also potentially use diamond cut silks if it isn't important to you to display the silk as a square. These are silks cut in a special way so they appear to be full size but take up roughly 40% to 50% of the volume.

Also, you can potentially switch from silks squares to streamers of the same length. Streamers visually look as long but take up a lot less space. I sometimes substitute Jay Scott Berry's Total Eclipse streamer effect for Chameleon Silks when table hopping and cant show all tables the same. Very powerful routine where two different color streamers appear then are fused together.

http//www.penguinmagic.com/p/6058

Thanks for all the suggestions guys, much appreciated! You've given me a good starting point, looks like I have some experimentation to do.

I did a Google search and found Viking Magic dot com has a Chameleon Silks available for sale. It looks large size silks, so you might want to take a look. Comes with brass tube and silks, looking at the picture.

I've just listed two Palmo devices for sale on the Café'. here is the link:

https://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/view......forum=76

This Palmo gimmick will hold up to 24" silk:

https://stores.silkmagictricks.com/produ......lin.html