I have an effect called "Grin Reaper" in which a silk held between the fingers of an assistant is cut by a slashing sickle in a Halloween show,

The sticks also held next to the silk are cut but the silk is not. It was considered too dangerous by the audience of magicians.

Now with the TV ad of people cutting their bills in half with swings swords and such it may be appreciated,

plus the desire of young folk for blood and dismemberment in video games ...

details of the this effect are free for the asking -- if accompanied by an appropriate letter indemnifying me from any unhappy results.

If you are really gutsy you can have a spectator swing the sickle while you hold the silk and bundle of sticks ( fagot but that tern is unwise)

You can even get your necktie "accidentally" caught up in the bundle. It is cut also if the sickle is sharp enough -- only the silk is undamaged. Such fun!

and yes, the silk can be passed out afterwards or even be a borrowed scarf.

Here is Vito Lupo performing the trick:

https://youtu.be/q3nat3X04Bg?t=3m56s



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I saw Doug Henning perform this not too long before he died on a Canadian Late night talk show called 'Open Mike with Mike Bullard'. After the trick, Mike kept hassling him to open up the hank and to let him see it.. At which point Doug just put it in his pocket.

Sorry for bringing this up again, Who sells a dvd with cut/ restored silk. Love this one-Phoa Yan Tiong Cut And Restored Silk

Wally, Tabell Course.

Wally, no DVD on this one, it is in Tarbell 6, 7, or 8, can't remember which book.

The late Tom Mullica explained it on a television special years ago.

It is in Phoa Yan Tiong books, if I remember correctly. He died in 2006, and here is his website, with many pictures and video. Been a while since I roamed it, but I think you will enjoy the oriental style magic.

Thank you, This must bean old website,Not sure if the explanation for cut restored silk is on the seasons dvd, http://phoakheming.biedmeer.nl/Webwinkel......ons.html

Wally, this version destroys a silk every time it is shown. So you would need a quantity of silks to perform this effect.

Many do not do it for that reason.

Yes, that website is for the magic he performed in his act. If you took your time and watched many of his effects, that was what he performed all his working career.

Revisiting this thread...

I bought the Phoa "Cut-and-Restored Silk" at Tannen's back in the 1970's after Tony Spina demonstrated it for me. I was very disappointed to learn that a silk was destroyed each time it was performed, so I never added it to my repertoire.

Some of the over-40--okay, over-50--members of the Café may remember a "Cut and Restored Silk" effect where a silk is placed in a kind of paper envelope. Then the paper was cut in half and the two halves separated to show that the silk is clearly in two halves. The two papers were re-aligned, and the magician took one of the ends hanging out and pulled the whole restored silk out of the paper--and then showed the paper to bee empty.

I liked that version and did it for a while. I think it came out in the late 1940's and was a staple in catalogs for a long time.
This video shows something similar to the one that I remember:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtEYjn43je4

Years later someone came out with a version with a two-piece black plastic cylinder where a silk was thread through. Then a pair of scissors cut through the two halves of the plastic cylinder. The two halves were separated with the two halves of the silk clearly hanging out of both of them. The two half cylinders were re-aligned, and the silk was pulled out restored.

The nice thing about the version with a paper or plastic tube is that the silk is never really cut in two! With the plastic tube version, there's nothing to replace and it re-sets quickly.

----- Amado "Sonny" Narvaez

Thanks, Sonny. That would be a nice
kids show effect...

Dan Harlan included Phoa's Cut and Restored in one of his recent courses: https://www.penguinmagic.com/p/9745

I saw that John Kaplan's Killer Cut was mentioned way earlier in this thread. It'a great routine to consider.