Huge wicks on Staff

Ok, so I've been playing around with putting massive wicks on staves for 6 months or so, and I thought I'd start sharing my findings with the HoP world. I'd also be interested to find out if anyone has been doing stuff along the same lines.

I started off just wrapping kevlar wicks and ropes further down a tube core staff. It got lots and lots of fire but I wasn't really very happy because it made the staff unwieldy and heavy as hell.

so I started looking at designing a staff that didn't have a tube core except for the handle, and thus reducing the weight at the ends. My first experiment was pretty much just a handle with a foot and a half of inch thick rope attached to each end... Its probably one of the more dangerous things I've done in a while, and I lost all my arm hair getting the hang on it, but it works and looks mighty firey and a bit unique. The problem with it is that as its not rigid, its very hard to throw and pretty much impossible to do contact.

I've just finished a second rope staff, this one with a 6mm steel rod running right through it, which holds the ropes rigid, but still keeps the weight down and better distributed. Looks a bit like Darth Maul's lightsabre... lots of fire and lots of fun, good for throwing and I even got up the courage to do a few neck wraps with it (after soaking my hair in water ), but mainly it just LOOKS AMAZING! Also, no tube core -> almost solid wick -> longer burns! I can put up some more detailed explanations of how its made if anyone wants.

Anyway, the question (finally) is has anyone tried this, and if so what did you use to keep the ropes rigid? I'm guessing my steel will bend out of shape when I start dropping it, and I'd like to try something else. Any ideas out there?

Anyway, some photos of the staff in use and not are in my gallery

Cheers,
scary

I know strugz has some staffs with rope coiled and knotted down the ends of a hollow tube with the ends poked in, looks very nice with about a foot of wick each end

Tried this a long time ago and had the same problems with rigidity, you might want to try titanium as I found some very limmited success with titanium rod installed into 25mm rope, but bends were always a problem, settled on rope or flat wick coiled down the staff and lived with the weight increase, which is not as notable if you pick the right guage of metal work.

mark

Just had a look at your gallery pics, it wasnt what i expected. Having loose rope on the end will make it really hard to control (as im sure you already know).
For my staff i wanted nice big wicks so i used 1 metre of inch thick rope wound round in a spiral around 1 inch titanium tubing. The titanium gets the weight down and 2 metres of rope at the ends gives it a nice balance, its the best stick ive had yet (been through about 5 now)
My only concern is there is a bit of metal poking out the corner of each end which wont be nice when i hit myself but i think im gonna re-design it so some of the rope pokes into the end of the tubing and i screw through the rope twice (once on the outside through to the metal then the inside rope)

Thanks! guess i need to try tracking down some titanium.
Yeah I've tried doing the coiling down the shaft thing a fair bit but i prefer the weight to be quite well distributed along the staff, the total weight is not really a problem for me.
And yes the one with loose rope (I call it "the bad idea" )is ridiculously hard to control, but surprisingly fun.
I must find some pix of strugz work...

cheers,
scary

ill find some pix out for you later 2nyt when i get home dude

and a web page showing how to do the knot would help strugz... then I can make one too