Hi gang, I do own Don's wonderful DVDs and have his sources to buy Svengali decks but I was wondering if there is a way to make them yourself... in bulk. I also have a card cutter that requires you to cut cards one at a time but that takes forever. I thought I saw on here someone was making there own decks at a copy shop or something...

I know many people are wondering why I don't want to buy them ready made, and I don't want this to be a discussion about that so I will just tell you I had my own cards printed. Any tips or pointers would be a big help and greatly appreciated.

Thank You,
Fitz

Fitz,

The only way to make them yourself is to take the ones that need cut to a printer and let them do it.Its really cheap and most of all FAST.You don't have to have the cornors rounded.They work just as well with a .square cornor on one end.

Hope this is the answer you were looking for.

Don

Hi Don, thanks for the fast answer... how much should I have them cut???

Once again Thank You,
Fitz

Fitz,

Not much at all.Maybe 1/8 an inch. Go check a deck.Also only put 48 cards in the deck.Thats so you come out even when you put them back together.(you'll understand what I'm saying once you start making them)

Don

One more question, have you ever made your own stripper decks??? If so any tips?

Thanks,
Fitz

You like to punish yourself don't you?

Yes I do...

Sorry I never made stripper decks.

Don

For a stripper deck you need a card trimmer and a corner rounder. The card trimmer need some sort of adjustable guides so you trim the exact same way every card. If you search stationary stores and scrapbook stores you can probably find usable tools. If not you can search around magic sources and pay insane amounts for them.

Massive pain in the .

Just buy them wholesale.

I make 50-100 decks a week-takes 2 hrs for 50

Like Don says-I go to a professional guillotinist at a print company & in 12 mins have 50 decks done

I cut- 1 mm from them & like Don leave the corners straight!!

Works great

Don't BOTHER. BUY STRIPPERS OR SvengaliS IS CASE LOST FROM MAJOR DEALERS.
DICK

Not sure I know what you mean here...

Sorry for the typo. It should read
Don't BOTHER. BUY STRIPPERS OR Svengalis IN CASE LOTS FROM MAJOR DEALERS.
DICK

I agree, unless you have LOTS of time on your hands, it's basically not worth it.

Just find a good brand you like and stick with it. You can get samples from most distributors and then pick the grade/price of deck you want. SETH

Could you use a grinder (the one to sharpen chisels) and just trim a bunch of cards all at the same time?

Darwin Ortiz has a 'wild card' packet trick which employs a few short cards, which he makes by using very fine sand paper. (ie just rub the edge of the card against the sand paper). this might work better than cutting!

For one gross of cards that shouldn't last one week end,you would have to sand 4,556 cards one card at a time,about 1/16 of an inch off the top and made sure they are all even after the sanding.

Now if you think that's a good idea instead of buying them wholesale for .60 a deck...well.

Don

Listen to Don... and then... GO BUY his DVDs.
If you ever just woke up yestarday and thought ..."I wonder how they DO that..?"

Buy Dons DVD - save yourself hundreds of hours of "no-pay" work - just learn the pitch and go DO it!!

Regards,

DCB

I have seen the "grinder" method before, and they were crap.

Fitz

It's one thing if you want to sand down a few cards for a single packet trick, especially if they are corner shorts.

But if you are selling Svengali Decks in bulk, this method seems like a monumental waste of time and sandpaper to me, especially when you can get good precision-cut pitch decks, with pre-sorted cards and instructions, for less than $1 a deck. SETH