I have been lucky enough to have just purchased Slydini Silks. Very nice silks, however, I notice only after about 30 minutes of practicing with them, the material is coming unraveled (sp??) like a normal silk does. Is this something I should expect or did I get a cheap pair of silks. Thanks in advace for you help.

Kasper

Hi Kasper,

You have to trim the loose bits with a SHARP pair of shears. If you try to pull the loose bits the whole shooting match will unravel on you.

For the record, this is a GREAT street routine.

Best,

Dan-

I just started doing this routine myself and I'm just using normal silks from the magic store.

I'm not having any problem with them. Is there a huge difference between the actual Slydini silks and the plain old magic store silks.

Frank

The Slydini silks are made of parachute material(rip stock nylon). If you get a person that pulls hard to tighten a knot, some of the store silks will tear.

MagicRMA

It is a very nice routine. I rate it very highly. I've never seen Slydini do the effect but it must have been wonderful.

I think it would be quite entertaining. Slydini seemed pretty concerned about keeping moisture and dirt off the silks to prevent binding. I would assume that would be something to watch out for.

Besides that, it has a very magical impact.

I have the Slydini book and it is quite thorough in the explainations. To get yourself over the hump, I would suggest a video to see how it's supposed to look and for basic advice.

I got this from the Bill Malone #1 DVD.

It's great. Short but sweet.

There is a huge difference Frank. As Magicrma already said, regular silks will tear, but most importantly the parchute nylon silks are coated with a chemical that makes them slide against each other extremely easily. Plus the method is 100X easier with the Slydini Silks versus regular ones.

Thanks to all for your replies. I'm starting to get a hang of using the silks. But what other presentations can go with the routine besides "I tie the knot, and now it's gone. You tie the knot, it's gone. You two have tied knots, they're gone." I know that is the idea behind the routine but it seems to narative. Maybe I'm only saying this because I haven't tried it out on a lay audience (practice, practice, practice) Unfortunately, I've only seen one person do the routine and that was Bill Malone and I only saw it one time last year and I forgot his routine. Thank you in advance for your help.

the syldini routine is worth reading.
I'd recommend getting the Bill Malone DVD #1 and the Annotated Magic of Slydini.

The book will give you a lifelong lesson in misdirection techniques which I believe is the most important thing you can learn in magic PLUS all the details of the silks routine. There are several phases beyond what you see on Malone's DVD.

It is not an easy read if you have not seen the DVD. I could not get interested just from reading until I saw Malone do it.

Needless to say, the day after I saw Malone's DVD, I spent the bucks on the Slydini silks.

If you know absolutely nothing about doing this category of silk magic tricks I agree with Frank. Start with the Bill Malone DVD and "silks". There is certainly no reason not to use real silks if you know how to work with real silks. Real silk is 2/3s as strong as steel. It doesn't stretch like Nylon does and it does not deteriorate in light like Nylon does. It is easier to puncture and stain.

Tony Slydini taught me the trick with real silks back in the 60s.

Bob Sanders
Magic By Sander