Bill:

Since the Abbott cage is very quiet it is great for intimate conditions.

Blaney should use the Owen cage his hands are large and the Owen cage is the largest.

There is no snag point on the Abbott cage. It all depends on your technique. Any of the cages could snag, but those two designs are less likely to snag.

The Abbott cage is covered in ribbons for two reasons which are postives.
1. To make the cage easier to see at a distance.
2. To help the cage do what it does.
3. It is built for speed.

I repeat the Abbott cage is AlSO the most quiet,and lightest AND Fastest it is designed for speed it is also very strong. The Abbott cage is less likely to break the fingers of children also and it gives some,so you can wear it longer.

The ribbon will wear in time but it is a simple matter to replace it, Abbotts will do it for you also. If you wear out the ribbon you have done 100's if not 1,000 of shows. It also does not cost much to replace(the ribbon).

A few pros that have used Abbott's are Blackstone Sr.,Blackstone Jr.,Allen Hayden, Willard the Wizard,John Booth plus countless others.

I have tried both I prefer the flexible cage as oppossed to the semi rigid model.

I agree the milson worth style should not even be used it has so many snag points.

I have used all 3.

Since the Abbott cage is very quiet it is great to use closeup.

Don

I used both of them before I settled on the Owen cage. Like I said before, I won't argue the differences. I'll just say this. The Owen cage sits rigid. The Abbott's cage is like trying to hold a fistful of jelly.

But what do I know? I only did the trick for about 20 years. I quit doing it when I suffered a torn rotator cuff and discovered that the work with the cage was tearing my muscle structure.

Bill:

I must say that I have also done the cage for 20 plus years I just started at an early age of 14. Since I worked in a magic shop that is where I purchased my first cage. The Milson Worth style cage.

Each to his own BUT the Abbott cage IS a professinal grade prop. And is extremely reliable. As stated and used by many of the foremost fulltime pros. It was the cage I settled on.

I found the Lindhorst style heavier, slower in general,that it could snag and taking up more room in the S*** based on my arm length, and more uncomfortable to wear,and when it vanished it did make a noise with or without a canary which was louder when no canary was inside.

The Lindhorst pattern is what the Owen cage is built on. However it is still a professional grade cage.




Don

Here is the amazing Walter Blaney Vanishing Bird Cage! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWEht5_-f1k

I saw Tommy Wonder do his on video. I kept rewinding and placing it on pause. I still could not follow it because it was so fast.

Guys,
Go back and re-read what wmhegbli wrote about cutting down a Milson-Worth cage. It is pure gold...and it WORKS. I had two M-W cages (real ones), but was never happy for the the reasons Bill Palmer detailed. I decided to experiment with the rougher conditioned one of the pair. I cut it down just as recommended.

It took a hacksaw, drill, file and 30 minutes. At the end, I just added a loop of Spectra line as a p---, much like Biro suggests.

Works smoothly and fast. Is very tiny when collapsed...about 10 inches.

Also PM me for a brand new way that the resulting cage can be collapsed, which leaves it only 6 inches long, but a bit thicker.

Best bird cage advice I ever got.

Let me add several further thoughts about the cut-down cage and its ramifications.

Obviously, since the side bars are missing, the cage cannot be displayed unless held in the hands. This probably restricts the cage vanish to being used as an opener.... I suppose you could put it in a 'McComb' style box, and thus perform it anywhere in the act, but that would require an expensive take-up reel. Assuming that you are going to use it as an opener, the Biro hookup lets you ditch it almost immediately after the vanish anyway.

The modified cage now has a rigidity between that of a semi-rigid cage, and a jelly cage.

Because the side bars are missing, the cage can be rotated in such a manner that allows a right s----- vanish, or a left s----- vanish, all using the same single attachment point.

Mr. Palmer, can you share that information with me (PM me) or share it here if it's not revealing too much ? There are a lot of those Milson-Worth cages (or even more of the Indian-made copy of the M-W cage). If there's a way to modify it to make it workable I would like to know what you suggested to Lynn Johnson.


On the Vanishing Inc. website a user named A. Wade wrote this about the Indian M-W cage:

"This cage will stand rigid and can be held in one hand. The cage is fairly well made; however, the left and right sides have very sharp points at the solder joints. I used a metal file and sandpaper to smooth the points."

Interesting that the cage shown in the Tommy Wonder book and on his L&L DVDs is a Milson-Worth cage, which Tommy Wonder refers to as a "Lindhorst" cage , but it is clearly not a Lindhorst cage. He spent a lot of time modifying that cage with extra soldering of sleeve guards, and some other extra bits to allow for holding it one-handed. Seems like he would have been better off with using a smaller Lindhorst-style cage to begin with instead of essentially re-building the Milson-Worth cage , but you've got to admire his ingenuity and workshop skills in modifying the M-W cage.

The Milson-Worth Silver Meteor cage appears to be based on Warren Simms’ Silver Flash cage that he sold through Tannen’s. I was told that Simms built and sold this cage design from the 1940’s - 1970’s (he died in 1976 , which is when Milson-Worth started making their version of it). I can’t imagine the design is so flawed that Simms would have stayed in business selling them for 30+ years , so what was it that Milson-Worth got wrong about the Simms design when they started making it ?

Just for fun, here's a clip I found of Jeff Hobson demo'ing the Milson-Worth cage.

I should note that Jeff Hobson said that he was using a "modified Milson-Worth model" , whatever that may mean (?). Curious how he modified it.

But I think that vanish looks very good.

Hi - I modified the cage by cutting off the unnecessarily long silver bars of the cage - the main 4 bars that all other bars are attached to. The original cages had those bars extending about 3/4" too far - for no reason that I can see other than to make the cage appear larger, which it does not. So, the cage you see in the video has been modified. Now that those extended pieces have been removed it can no longer accidentally catch on the sleeve. This is a Milson Worth "Silver Meteor" cage.

Also, as an addendum, notice that I do not lung forward to make the cage vanish. I found that a criss-cross / hand-slapping motion creates the same momentum to bring the cage up the sleeve. And, I am only using one loop of nylon cord with one end attached to the cage and the around the thumb of my left hand.

Thank you , Jeff! Looking at a photo of the MW cage it seems like an obvious modification to make to that cage. It’s surprising that Milson-Worth never changed it during the years they were manufacturing the cage.

I think the minimal arm movement on yours with the criss-cross/hand-slapping action looks great. Very slick.

John Carney has the same set-up with the loop (around the thumb) on his video tutorial for the bird cage. (Carney is using a Jim Riser "Baby Lindy" , but your vanish with the modified M-W cage looks as good to my eyes.)