Recently, I bought an old box of magic props from the late 1950s/early 1960s, and it contained some 65ish year old flash paper. People frequently ask in magic social media groups, “Does flash paper go bad?” Well, let’s find out!
I’m amazed that it worked as well as it did and that it didn’t burn my fingers!
I think the issue that people have with flash paper is that they store it wet for safety, which is absolutely what you should do. Then dry out what you need to use a few days before you need it. That said, I think the paper sitting wet in a sealed bag over time will deteriorate. That takes years, and you really should be buying decades worth of flash paper at one time. It’s something you really should be buying a few months supply at a time. I personally wouldn’t want to store a ton of it at home.
Years ago I took fire out of my show, the reason is that you can’t do it everywhere. And some places that allow you to do it, there’s huge restrictions. A good example is right now I’m performing at a State Fair and there is zero fire allowed. If I counted on destroying a dollar bill by burning it, I would have to cut that bit from the show. I want a show that I can consistently do the same way every time.
Here’s a story about working with a fire act from about a decade ago. I was working with a juggler and whose finale was juggling torches. At his first show at the fair, the fire marshal walked by and saw him with the torches on fire and had a chat with him right before his next show. The juggler needed two “safety” people onstage, one with a bucket of water and one with a fire blanket.
Since this was right before his show, the juggler asked me and another act to help him out, so we did and everything went well…until the juggler’s third show. When he asked us to help again, we both said no. We have other things to do, and while I’m happy to help once, I’m not going to do my three shows a day PLUS being his unpaid fire safety for three more shows. The juggler ended having to cut his finale, and didn’t have a backup plan and ran short the rest of the run.
If the juggler had asked about fire before the gig this wouldn’t have been as big of a problem as he could have packed a backup plan. Sure the fire marshal can be inconsistent when you talk to them, but just making that phone call can give you an idea of whether or not it will be a challenge to get that fire trick onstage.
If you’re show uses fire, be sure to bring a backup plan in case you get shut down!
Over the last couple of days I designed and built a tiny cannon that will shoot out a flea in a flea circus. I picked up some flash paper and finally got to try it out and it worked! It’s always a good feeling when something translates from your head to a physical prop easily.
If you’re not 3d printing props, you are really missing out. Basically within 3 hours of chatting about making a flea cannon I had one in my hand. The video below has a little overview on the 3d printing process as well as a demo of the flea cannon.
If you don’t have a 3d printer, you are really missing out!
