Fire snakes

hello,

ive been spinning for about 6 months and i want to get some fire poi. ive seen fire snakes and i think they look like a cool idea,

are they different to spinning normal fire poi?

can anyone who owns or has spun fire poi give me some advice please?

thanks

chris

Fire ropes or snakes look well cool, But the flames are a bit scary cos they're huge!!

You can be limited on moves such as tangles with ropes because of the thickness, and lack of weight on the end (again, depends which ones)

I would say get some normal fire poi first, and then get some ropes.

ABSOLUTELY get your fire poi first. have you ever actually spun fire before? it would probably be better for you to get used to fire without having it be so huge and close to your body.

yeah ive spun fire before, i use fire devil sticks so im used to the fire and i do some Fire Breathing, i respect what im dealing with.

the main problem is money cos if i buy little poi im prob gonna want something bigger and i havnt got the cash,

so its kinda like one or the other so im not sure.

what dyu think?

maybe get a set of heftier wicks for your first set? I'd still recommend poi before snakes.

Firetoys makes some with weighted ends, I think.

they have ripped my idea!

thats well fookin annoying!

http://www.firetoys.co.uk/juggling/snakes_fire_blades_poi.html

I got some snakes. I could use some weighted ends, other wise they're very light, the flames are huge and if you don't keep them moving your fingers get rather toasty. ^^

I'd strongly recommend getting your standard fire poi first, and agree with juusan that perhaps you should consider larger wicks on those instead of going for snakes straight away.

Also, like Loves_the_Circus says, you are limited when it comes to moves. If you're not careful, you'll pick up habits which might 'stunt' your spinning progress, e.g. not holding a stall long enough (because you can't really- funny thing once happened to me: a guy with a staff came up to me in the middle of a snakes routine and asked for a light. Not that I could really stop.)- or worse, not doing stalls at all, which are very useful transition moves. Not to mention the fact that you probably won't be able to pull off as many kicks, taps or wraps.

Not to mention waistwraps, which can be slightly trickier with the amount of flame, no matter how good they look.

So when should you move on to snakes then? I'd say probably when you're comfortable with making your own fire toys, because then you know exactly what you are making for yourself, and don't base your technique around someone's not very well-designed snakes. I say this because, to my liking, I haven't come across snakes which are weighted very well. I like snakes which are either heavier at the end, like standard poi, or consistently heavy all throughout- not heavy somewhere near the middle bit.

Furthermore, I've also found that some snakes, like:
http://www.firetoys.co.uk/juggling/snakes_fire_blades_poi.html
don't really 'look' very nice. The extra heads at the end look a bit like a compromise solution. I'd imagine that they wouldn't burn very evenly either. Consider that as you spin, the fuel kinda makes it's way to the ends, so as a result, you'd probably get ends still going strong while the area closer to the handles has long started to smoulder.

Anyway. That off my chest, these are my snakes:
http://www.homeofpoi.com/gallery/showpho...=500&page=7
It took me about 15 hours to make, and for me, they're perfect. If anything at all, they might be an 3cm too long, and it prevents me from doing buzzsaws with them, but when I was making them, I had a bit of flame lust.

They're heavy chain all the way til about 2 cm from the end (not just 10 cm of chain connected to 60cm of rope-style wick- which I find flimsy and aren't responsive enough to moves). there's a strip of 2.5" stitched to the chain, then wrapped and folded and stitched to itself, and stitched to that is another strip of around 4 1/8" wick. This is what they look like lit:
http://www.homeofpoi.com/gallery/showpho...=500&page=6

Also. Don't forget that if your -primary- toy is going to be firesnakes, can you afford each snake taking in 3-4 times as much fuel as a standard 2.5" tube core poi?

Just throwing some thoughts around. Don't forget to keep us posted on how it goes..

that's some great advice ry, and i will take the weighting into account when it's time to snake up.
i rate this thread very informative (i was planning to make a snake that had consistent weighting throughout the length of the wick, but realise with your post that a disproportinate distribution is prob best)

Glad to be of help bender.. Though.. to clarify, regarding disproportionate distribution of weight, while I feel end heavy, like standard poi is/can be a good thing, I quite like a consistent weight throughout too.

I would generally suggest that the chain runs the whole length of the snakes, as opposed to having a heavy middle bit and light ends, or unusually heavy ends..

The most important thing to me, is not having the middle really heavy (for example, excess metal links and joining bits) connected to a flimsy piece of wick. You'd probably notice it'll feel like spinning really short poi (though they're not), and it'll be hard controlling the wick bit. It'd probably mess up your isolations too.

Basically, whatever Ry says about snakes is on the money: his are beautiful to use, even for a mediochre spinner like me... here's
a wonderful photo of him using them (nice one Gita!)

omg flid, that must've felt awful, mate!
shouldn't you get credit? Milla Jovovitch was sleeping with Luc Besson and he put *her* in teh credits for 'The Fifth Element'... maybe you should recieve the same recognition.

I've been making fire blades / ropes / snakes / for over the last two years now, (has it really been that long), I use several differing designs, I had to smile when I read Ry's post about takng 15 hours to make a set, without really looking at the pic's I had a really good idea of what you were making, I work night shift and have spent many a night shift during break's hand stitching fire snakes, acutally had some of the other night shift staff helping out as well, takes me about two hours a snake uninterupted, otherwise I think the last set that are now somewhere in america took about a week to make. I use 65 / 80 / or 118mm kevlar for these, depending upon reuqired buring times, for really long buring times over 8 mins I use an outer tubular kevlar sleve as well.

Anyone who's seen the snakes I make will note an helical effect running the entire length, this is due to the way I wrap the kevlar around the chain, which is then stitched through every link with stainless steel welding wire, not really any good for wrist or arm wraps though.

These are either finished off with what can best be described as poi heads at the end of each snake, or left with a single link protruding at the end to facilitate the attachment of addition fire poi heads.

In the essence of reducing build times and extending burning times my later builds are potentially being moved over to 25mm kevlar rope, for evaluation as I know many people make use of this material for fire snakes without problems, although I've always prefered a design that doesn't rely upon the kevlar to hold it together, again these are made with or without aditional heads at the ends

I should really get around to posting some pics sometime, don't have the gallery space though.

mark

wow marco, you must be quite talented!! I could never make fire toys that hella fast.
i would try to avoid exposed metal when it isn't utterly necessary.
i'm excited to hear about your swish designs, would you like me to upload your pix?
b.

I chose to make use of stainless welding wire largely against all the information that I'd researched, mainly I was looking for a material that could be rated as close to zero maintainance. I felt that using kevlar thread to stitch although having certain advantages would probably begin to degrade. If it's exposed metalwork, then I use 22mm tubular wick to sleve the entire length, thus placing a kevlar barrier between the wire and the outer surface for performers who make use of wraps etc.

Either way I'm updating most of the snake / blade / rope designs I make use of, subject to satisfactory completion of prototype testing.

Bender, would be glad to email you some pics if you want to upload them, kevlars on order for the next build, I can of course send you images of the used ones anytime you want, if anyone wants construction details then they can be provided as well.

mark

Quotes Flid "Am I glad I'm not an egotistical american whose got their head stuffed so far up their behind that they think they're an elite designer"

It seems Fire By Riz explains Just how the He made the all kevlar Poi ( link to HOP post below)...By looking at the dates of your Flid design post and the date of the post where he explained how he made them , He has you beat by almost a year. Your post being made in late 03 and his being made in early 02...Maybe you missed that thread because you had not joined HOP yet ..


http://www.homeofpoi.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=132245

thought this would be the best place to ask

i'm just wondering how much fire u get with the HoP fire snakes i will probably get the xl ones but the ones i used before had a different design which looked like u had more fire than the HoP ones i was wondering if this was right or weather the picture is just a bit deceptive