Prop Building – Page 6 – MagicShow.Tips

Gaffed Cards…

One of the things that I want to play with this summer are gaffed cards. More specifically, I want to use flap cards to do some changes. I’ve got a few ideas for what I want to do with the flap cards. Ideally I want to put together a close up set that’s 5 mins that can be projected onto a screen.

This is one of the places where a flap card will shine, because people can’t reach for the cards, and it allows you to more easily ditch things. The formal close up allows you to do some fun magic that’s highly visual…and doesn’t require a lot of space in the luggage.

Last night I was playing with more traditional “dental dam” flaps. They work great, however they have seams in them that the more modern “Hondo” style flap cards don’t have. Hondo has really solved a lot of problems with the dental dam flap cards. However, the Hondo flap cards do have their own disadvantage, and that’s that you can potentially see the elastic as it’s on the outside of the card.

All in all, I think both gimmicks have a place where one is better than the other. Now to figure out what I want to do in my card set….

-Louie
Click here to learn more about building your own magic props!

Custom Props…

One of the things I’ve been doing over the last few years is getting rid of props that I don’t like, and replacing them with custom versions that are made how I want them. I’m sure you have something that you use, that just not quite right for how you handle it. Maybe you’d like the prop an inch longer, two pounds lighter, or whatever.

Having a 3D printer has made doing a lot of this very easy. I can print something, and if it’s not perfect I can easily tweak the design and reprint it. For example, I 3D printed all the props for my bubble act.

There are a few things that I can’t easily do at home. One of the things is my table top. I love it for when I’m actually working on the table top, but not for stage show where basically just holds props. For my stage show the table top is about an inch too short and I don’t like how everything sits. I just ordered a new custom size table top from Viking Magic:

I got a nice bonus with the table top, besides being the size I want for my stage show, it’s also about a pound and a half lighter than my other table top! That means I can pack a little bit more in my case when I fly.

TLDR: Have props you like!

-Louie
Click here to learn more about building your own magic props!

Custom Built Props…

We live in a very exciting time to be a magician. Right now it’s super easy to get custom made props cheaply. This means your show doesn’t have to look exactly like someone else’s. For example the Evaporation trick…don’t want it in orange Sunny D? Easy, I can make it in almost any other bottle … Continue reading “Custom Built Props…”

Click here for details on custom Evaporation bottles

This goes with pretty much any prop, you can print out decals on your home inkjet printer and add them to props. Then you could customize off the shelf props that use generic product names to have “brand names”.

Here’s an example from my show. I do a soap bubble act and all of the props were made from “found materials”, thing that I repurposed to use as props. The props don’t remotely match is color or general look. I spend about 45 minutes one day designing them to print on my 3d printer.

I printed them out and got a set of props that not only looks better than what I was using before, but works better than what I was using before. If you don’t have a 3d printer, there are plenty of services that will print out your projects for you, there are even libraries that have 3d printers you can use!

Basically in 2018, there’s no real reason to have props that are cobbled together (unless that’s the look you are going for).

Louie
Click here to learn more about building your own magic props!