I got a pair of palmer silks and I have a dvd from Bill Malone where he explains the silks. The problem I have is when The spectator is told to tie another (or a third) knot on top of the original knot. There are two ways they can tie the knot, either silk A goes around silk B and through the hole or the other way around. one way will let me upset the second knot and still pull the silks apart but if they do it the other way then there is no way I can pull the silks apart, even if I try to upset the knot. The reason is because if the knots after the first are tied the "right" way then essentially one silk will be going through each knot of the other silk but is not itself knotted around the other silk, but if the second knot is tied in such a way that the silk that goes through the knots of the other silk gets itself tied around the other silk, then it will not be able to slide free. In the dvd Bill malone says to make one end of the silks smaller so the spectator is more likely to tie the longer one around the smaller one thus eliminating the problem I mentioned, but he also says that if they tie the silk the wrong way you can still get them apart by upsetting the knot. I cant do that, if the second knot gets tied the wrong way and gets tightened then no amount of upsetting the knot will get them apart so what am I doing wrong or what did Bill Malone not mention on the dvd?

Hi there.

It shouldn't matter what end the spectator tucks when tying their knot, as long as the previous knot has been "upset". Are you upsetting each knot (under the guise of tightening them) ?

Also, are you making sure - using the coloured thread - that you are pulling on the correct end ?



Jim

Just to add - Kevin Wisch has said that his father, Bill, will soon be releasing The Knotted Silks. Aside from being a fantastic magician, Bill was also a student of Slydini.



Jim

Sorry, I missed this in my first post -

Just to clarify, are you tying the first knot, then letting the spectator tie theirs, or is the spectator tying the first and subsequent knots ?

If it's the former, there should be no problems regarding how any subsequent knots are tied by the spectator.

If it's the latter, you need to watch how the first knot is tied.

As this is getting more into method, perhaps it would be better to take this into secret sessions.



Jim

I played around with this some more and can now upset the second and third knot no matter which way they are tied but sometimes if the knot is tied the way in which I had difficulties before I still can not upset it, it happens if the knot gets tightened real tight. Then no amount of pulling will upset the knot. In those csses I have to undo the knot by hand. If the knots are tied in the other way where the silk that is used to upset the previous knots is not tucked and knotted around the other silk I can always upset the knot no matter how tight its tightened

I tie the first knot myself so its a square knot and yes I upset all the knots until the problem knot which is the second or third knot which will not pop and get upsetted no matter how much I pull.

I haven't had a problem with the multiple knots in performance for years. I do use a specific way of making sure I can upset the knot, but I can't share it on an open forum.

Hi Jim, all-
I just saw this post by you, Jim. FYI, this 2-Disc DVD will be released tomorrow at 7pm EDT. See below. Hope to see you there!