Prop Building – Page 2 – MagicShow.Tips

Magic Show Prop Box

For my show this summer that I’ll be doing at libraries and summer camps, I wanted to dedicated prop box for it. I found this old RC Cola box at a junk shop. The guy wanted way too much for it, but I talked him down to where it made sense as I didn’t want it as an advertising collectible, I just wanted it as a box.

Once I got the box home I covered it with black fabric, added metal corners and changed the hinges. Here’s what it looks like now:

This was a quick, easy way to make a prop box for the summer magic show. It doesn’t need to last for years, just 3 months!

-Louie
Click here for more information about learning to build your own magic props.

Breakaway Flower

Another prop for my summer library show is a breakaway flower. This is like the old breakaway wand comedy prop, but it’s flower.

It does have one other bonus bit to it, the top flower separates from the stem. They are attached by a magnet. The idea for the routine will be that the flower is going to disappear. It breaks and it put it back together a few times. Then the flower separates from the stem. I toss the flower in the air and it disappear, but the kids notice it’s stuck to my butt. The flower finally disappears (in a devils hank?) and reappears somewhere else.

Nothing super crazy here, but a way to theme the breakaway wand from a comedy prop that’s added to a routine, to it being one of the main props for the routine.

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

Goldfish Cracker Puppet

I’m working on my library show for this summer. The show is going to have a trick for all of the colors of the rainbow. For orange I’m going to use a puppet that will do a card trick. I didn’t like the commercially made goldfish puppets, then I thought of the goldfish cracker. I liked that look and it’s funnier than a puppet that looks like a real goldfish.

Unfortunately no one make a goldfish cracker puppet, so I had to build one. I did find someone on TikTok that had made some, but isn’t currently making them. That meant I had to make my own:

This one is almost done, I need to put the eyes on it. I want to rig it so that one of the eyes will fall off, and I need to figure out how that’s going to happen.

This was my first time making a soft puppet, and it came out OK. It only needs to do about 30 shows this summer and not last for years. In the future I’d probably make it out of a different material that’s not felt. The felt will get fuzzy and “pill” with travel and use.

Overall the prop looks good enough and will get through the shows.

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

Magic Show Pop Up Bins

Many magician use pop up bins for prop holders. These are basically fabric covered cardboard cubes that sit on your table and keep your props out of view. I’ve used a half size one, so only about six inches tall for many years. I needed to replace my old one and I learned that that don’t make the size I need anymore. The taller cube is too tall for me to sue, so I custom made myself one.

Here’s my old one, my new one is in the middle and a standard tall one:

Since I was making one, I could make one that is how I wanted it to be, not how they come from the store. Here’s a close up of the custom one that I made:

I wanted my bin to be slightly taller so my props don’t stick out above the front, so I made the front 8 inches tall. I also need to be able to easily get to things sitting on the bottom of the bin, so I made the back of it six inches tall.

I love the result of it! It’s exactly what I need, and I’m not compromising. The best thing is that it was really easy to make! My only regret is that I didn’t custom make one years ago!

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

Tinkertopia!!!

One of my favorite stores is in Tacoma, WA, it’s called Tinkertopia. It’s a reclaimed material store that resells this stuff for art.

They have soo much cool stuff, and I always find things that I can use as a part of a magic prop or for some other project.

One of the things that I found were some hinged plastic circles. You can see them on the counter in the above picture. They are 4 segments that are hinged to make circles. I’m thinking I’m going to use them for something similar to the hinged ruler figures that magicians used to do.

The challenge with a store like this is that once they sell out of something, you many never find it again. They had these hinged circles in three colors, so I bought two of each color for a total of six of them. I’m kinda regretting not buying them out of all of them, I have a strange feeling I’ll either need more for whatever idea I come up with, or I’ll fall in with whatever my idea is and want to make a backup and I won’t be able to find more.

Then there’s the possibility that I don’t come up with anything I like with them and end up throwing them away. That’s the gamble.

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

Prop Fixing Day

I was looking at my magic tables and they’re getting beat up. Two of them it’s just the the top fabric was getting worn out, but the third one was straight up beat to crap!

This is my stage table, and things sit on the top of it, so you don’t see the surface of it. As long as I was recovering my two tables that I work on, I might as well do this one.

Here’s all three tables with their new surfaces. Honestly, I don’t know why I didn’t do it sooner, it only took about 30 is mins to do all three of them and it’s not hard. I have a self adhesive surface I use.

Sometimes it’s hard to know when your props are getting worn out as it happens slowly and gradually. Every now and then you really need to give your stuff a good once over !

– Louie
Click here for more information about learning to build your own magic props.

Production Totes

When making deliveries, Amazon uses these totes to haul packages:

I don’t know if they’re common enough for people to recognize what they are. They collapse flat and I think they could be converted to a magic prop. It wouldn’t be hard to make one into a tip over trunk. You would also simply put a panel that flips up on the bottom and put it on a mirror base and you’re good to go.

The challenge is that I don’t think they’re quite super common knowledge like a milk crate was. Maybe in a couple of years…

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

Need a Coin Tray

The “need a penny” tray that I’ve been playing with for a little while has been getting good reactions. It was time to tweak the design to make it look better and slightly more deceptive. The new one (on the right) is next to the old one:

The two main changes that I made was that I beveled the edges of the tray and I printed the bottom portion in black. Here’s a few more views of it:

The beveled edged and black bottom make it look soo much thinner. This is a great example of why you should learn about all types of magic. Essentially I took some stage illusion principles and applied them to a close up magic prop to make it more deceptive. I guess reading Rand Woodbury’s Illusionworks book when I was a teenager finally paid off!

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

Harvesting Magnets and Shims

Whenever I get any product that comes in the fancy box that has a magnetic flap in it, I always rip out the magnets and metal shims before I recycle the boxes.

The magnets and shims are very thin, which makes them great for magic!

The round shims are perfect for adding t playing cards or dollar bills!

Look around you at product packaging that you would normally just get rid of. There’s tons of useful things, like clear, rigid plastic. I used that to make the gimmick for my signed cracker routine.
The round shims are perfect for adding t playing cards or dollar bills!

Look around you at product packaging that you would normally just get rid of. There’s tons of useful things, like clear, rigid plastic. I used that to make the gimmick for my signed cracker routine.

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

Music Remote Holder

Once again my 3d printer saves me a big headache in getting something made! I need a holder for two Flic Buttons that someone from the audience will use to run a music cue for me during a comedy escape. I spent about 5 minutes designing a simple holder and then hit print!

Here’s what the finished prop looks like:

The piece on the left is the cover, however after putting the Flic Buttons into it, they pressure fit into it, so I don’t need the cover as they won’t fall out.

It’s really worth your time to learn to use basic 3d design software like TinkerCad even if you don’t have a 3d printer. You can design things and then email the file to someone else to print.

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