I have just enough left over aluminum tubing to make a set of swinging fire clubs (ala that awesome french video that got posted a little while back. What would I do without the internets?).
My design was going to be to have dowel running through the entire tube (which are approx 8" in length) and a little out one end. This excess dowel I was going to wrap in grip tape, for fear of the tube heating up the glue and doing bad things to my hands.
I have an old burn mark from borrowing a pair of staves from someone who had a friend make for her. This person thought it was a good idea to use gaffers tape, or something similar, on some metal that heated up quickly. So I have a pavlovian caution about these things (and using tools made by people who aren't experienced). Then I saw these: www.trickconcepts.com/prod-Ch...-11.aspx which looks like it has grip tape running to right up under the wick.
So I figured I'd solicit some thoughts while I wait for parts to show up in the mail. Any takers?
My design was going to be to have dowel running through the entire tube (which are approx 8" in length) and a little out one end. This excess dowel I was going to wrap in grip tape, for fear of the tube heating up the glue and doing bad things to my hands.
I have an old burn mark from borrowing a pair of staves from someone who had a friend make for her. This person thought it was a good idea to use gaffers tape, or something similar, on some metal that heated up quickly. So I have a pavlovian caution about these things (and using tools made by people who aren't experienced). Then I saw these: www.trickconcepts.com/prod-Ch...-11.aspx which looks like it has grip tape running to right up under the wick.
So I figured I'd solicit some thoughts while I wait for parts to show up in the mail. Any takers?
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Re: Grip tape question
Wed, July 23, 2008 - 3:09 PMIf you're making swinging torches, why use grip tape at all?
www.bearclawmfg.com/catalog/...ts_id/207
Depending on the temper of your aluminum, a short dowel of wood that extends through the fire zone should prevent a LOT of heat transfer. If you run it all the way through and attach your wick to the tube with screws that go through the wood, then wick, wood and tube all become one unit and there's no need for glue. -
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Re: Grip tape question
Fri, July 25, 2008 - 1:36 PMIt's mostly due to the short length of tube I have available. The extra dowel moves my hands farther away from the wick, which I consider a good thing. Then the dowel needs to be covered with something for aesthetics/comfort. The part near the handle will have electrical tape wrapped around it to keep them more spinnable, hopefully.
So, yeah, basically because I'm a broke college student. -
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Re: Grip tape question
Fri, July 25, 2008 - 2:22 PMSo, you use the tube to make the wood fire resistant, and use the dowel to give it the length. I do that too
www.bearclawmfg.com/catalog/...p/pID/142
If the wood is smooth, it's usually better than tape. The one part is the other end (where I have the wood ball). That's the only place you might want to consider tape. You could wind electrical tape around the end until it becomes spherical....
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Re: Grip tape question
Sat, July 26, 2008 - 12:25 AMClub swinging with tape on the balls? No. Bad.
You're not just waving landing-light batons here, you're swinging your prop from a universal-ball-joint formed by the palm and thumb-index web of your hand. Any friction at all sucks. Anything that sticks up from the ball, cuts.
Tedward's pics show a decent design, though I'd prefer the screw to be countersunk even with the wood, or no screw at all.
See the Schatz book or Anna Jillings' book for style and technique. Of course Michael Moschen's routine from Big Apple. And if you can find it, Charlie Brown's routine from one of the Hawaiian Juggling Festival videos. Or if you can get to the Lopez Island jugfest in mid-september you may get to see the last living example of 1930's Olympic-style club swinging by Tim Furst (Feodore Karamazov), if he attends.
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Re: Grip tape question
Sat, July 26, 2008 - 1:22 AM(the ones on the spinning torches are. The eating torches are slightly countersunk, but if we go too deep, they lose effectiveness.) -
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Re: Grip tape question
Sat, July 26, 2008 - 3:33 PMwhen NASA was confronted with the problem of making an ink pen that would write in constant freefall, i.e. zero gravity, they spent nearly 4 million dollars....but in the end it worked.....
Russia, used a pencil.
buy some gloves. -
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Re: Grip tape question
Sat, July 26, 2008 - 4:34 PMAnd BTW, look at the original post, I don't think he intends to HAVE balls on them.
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Re: Grip tape question
Sat, July 26, 2008 - 5:10 PMI wasn't planning on putting balls on the torches, though I'm leaning towards it the more I think about it. If I do, I don't plan on taping the balls; the "stem" would have some grip tape covered with electrical tape at the ball end, which really doesn't have much friction. In either case I'm not opposed to building callouses.
I'm going to give it a shot, and if it doesn't work, I'll change it. My main concern is that it's not a terribly unsafe thing to try.
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Re: Grip tape question
Sat, July 26, 2008 - 5:15 PMOh, yeah, it's unsafe. You're 'depending' on glue to hold the wick to your hand. Most of our fuels eat the kinds of adhesives that are useful for this purpose. So, one slip and it starts to unravel. You'd be way better off folding a strip of metal over a welded ring and bolting it to the shaft. Or at least put a bolt through many layers of the tape wad then one more layer over to prevent scuffing on the screw.
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