Anyone here have any experience with this effect? I'm trying to do this close up and could use any tips you can provide.

Bye for now

Harold

Harold, how close are you going to be? If you are doing stand-up at a small venue (club?) and the audience is sitting fairly close to you, try using a small silk scarf, say a 14 incher. The scarf is behind the Microphone stand and you pull your hands forward of the stand. The audience clearly sees the silk scarf looped around the stand. Do the dirty work as you bring your hands together briefly and then spread them apart showing that the silk scarf has penetrated the stand.

I watched Walter (Zany) Blany perform this effect years ago. He was on stage and never brought his hands together. He would start with the a large 36 inch silk behind the microphone stand and keeping his hands and arms parallel, he would apparently pull the silk through the stand. He immediately repeated the effect (repeated it three times actually!).

I want to use the principle for two effects:
(1) The Bohlene (?) routine with three 4" rings and a silk, which normally uses thread tied to a ring on your thumb (but uses to much hand movement for my comfort).
(2) A 5" ring off silk or a 5" ring off rope. The silk give you better cover, but I'd love to do with rope.

While some reel-less methods exist, all of them look like you quickly changed ends. While I have a few reels, it looks like the one that will work best is the cheap bill snatcher, as none of my other reals have brakes.

Also I'm looking to hook and unhook the reel onto the silk, so that I can apparently start and finish clean. Interestingly enough, it loks like I'm going to have to use a second reel to vanish a handheld reel.

Bye for now

Harold

Many reel users will put a small snap on a corner of a silk and on the end of the reel to allow it to be detached after use.