My wand has arrived today, and this is the situation on both ends of the wand: the black tube is severly bent inward in order to fit the caps.
This makes the wand unusable, and the black material seems to have been in that position for a long time and does not recover the round shape.
The wand came from Penguin Magic, makes me wonder how they can ship an obviously useless prop.
Has anybody had the same problem and been able to fix it?
The only solution seems to cut 2 inches off each end in order to get rid of the bent material.

Click here to view attached image.

Send them the pic, and demand a refund!!!

Waiting for a reply from Penguin.

They are very good about returns, give them a minute or 2

You can cut an inch of of each end and put a strip of black masking tape in about 1/2 inch to give the white tip extra hold before popping it off. I have used the tape for a long time and it seems to help.
IF you can't find black masking tape, electrical tape might work too.

Electrical tape works very well, and blends in nicely with the wand. Its what I've always done.

Does anyone have the problem of the caps fitting too snuggly?

I have trouble getting them to pop off at the right time. I always have to loosen them when I take them out and even though I am now used to it I feel like it does take away a little.

I've lubricated the ends and even sanded them down a little and then polished the ends so they are not rough. But it still sticks.

Any ideas?

Penguin gave me a refund.
I cut the dented ends off, resulting in a much shorter wand, now 4 inches smaller. And then started to practice with it, hoping it would still work.
From my experience so far, the caps should not be pushed in more then about 5mm on both ends (a 5mm overlap). What got my wand ruined was precisely the fact that the caps were pushed in about an inch and kept that way in storage.
The caps on my wand fit very tight (as evidenced by the bending of the inner tube) and no tape is necessary. I guess the tolerance on these materials varies from batch to batch.

Before cutting off the dented area, it would be best to simply boil a pan of water, find something the dame diameter as the inside of the wand, like a wood dowel and then submerge in the boiling hot water. That is after you remove the pan of water from the stove and flame. Leave it in until the water cools on its own. It should be as good as new.

The opposite is true as well, when you find the tip just to small use the same process on the tip to make it larger, buy using a larger plug on the tip.

Rolf Reiner is correct, the tip are only just set on very lightly and only enough to hold the tip in place while waving around.

I know that this is a bit of an older thread, but I just got my wand and I'm having the same problem that Curtgunz was having. Is this how the wand is supposed to be? Or did I get a poor quality wand? It seems like one end fits too snug to pop off, and the other end is very loose.

Just for the record, the Pop-Away Wand was invented by Maurice Philips and introduced by The Supreme Magic Company in 1971 or 1972. The early ones were brilliant and worked perfectly. Over the years new batches were made up by Supreme that still worked but not as well as the earliest model. Something to do with changes in manufacture of the materials

The Topsy Popsy Wand is the same thing as the Pop-Away Wand. It would be nice to see the inventor credited.

Quentin is right
and the original was indeed the best.

so sad that mine had come to and end and had to buy a new one. the one I had lasted almost 12 years with thousands of shows!

i went thru several that were just crap.

i did find the one by Trixie Bond to be the best one out there. it still does not even come close to the original one from supreme but it is the only one that actually works well enough to have in my show. with some serious practice I was able to to get it to do what I wanted to do.

sam

Thanks, Sam. I've ordered the one from Trixie and I'll post when it comes in. The other one I have was purchased on eBay, so I'm hoping that there's a big quality difference.