Are swivels necessary?

I've been thinking about it as I've been trying to eliminate as many links from my poi to try to take out any points of weakness...

...are swivels needed in fire poi or ropes?

I guess using cable without swivels would make buzzsaws a bit more clumsy and obviously if you have tails on practice poi they are needed, but are they needed for fire poi?

any thoughts?

Good quesion. I played without swivels for a year (with a fine dog-chain which can twist in itself a bit) and now got a good set (thx to Oud) with high quality (ball bearing) swivels. Would say that there is a slight better feeling with the ones with swivels (eg when doing isolations, buzzsaws), but I think not many could tell the difference .
So my conclusion: Not really necessary but a nice add on....

Looking forward to hear more oppinions

andy

knox, i would say some ort of swivel is neded yes, otherwise wire would jst twist and distort surly
my ropes use chain (metal loop chain) fo my ropes, but its all good, they dont mess up, and sone give me a problem....


but i can see the point of swivels, i have played iwth poi that have none, and found that they are a lil more harder to control, esp once you get into the more advanced tricks which would require good plane control and changing

maybe its just me, but i would say in throryyou neeed them, but its down you what you feel like...

they are not strictly neccisary, but the induced twist from not having them will create a noticable torque. it not only feels cleaner to have a swivel of some type, but you remove most of the the torque acting on your poi and therefor your planes really will be cleaner

torque is the kind of force that exherts itself as a "cross product" instead of a "dot product", ie, at right angles to the things inducing the torque instead of along the same direction. this means that the resulting force actually points out of the plane you are spnning in, and this causes your planes to become "unclean" uness you are actively compensating. So that explains while spinning with swivels feels cleaner - because you don't have to constantly apply counter-torque while you spin.

if you use ball chain, each link is effectivly a built in swivel, so torque along the chain only has to be transimitted a very small distance (less than a cm) before it is removed, which is why ballchain feels so smooth to spin with. Having one swivel with normal chain removes the vast majority of the torque, and having a second swivel at the other end takes out most of the remainder, so spinning with a double swivel setup is about 90 or 95% as clean as spinning with ballchain.

Use ball chain



Or is that just putting in more links?

surely that would juet be adding more links in!

Thats what I realised after wanting to sound like a smart ass.

nah - i think by 'links' dave meant 'unnecessary links between things' or even 'unecessary components'.

with ball chain you need just two links: handle-chain and chain-wick.

with normal oval link you have up to twice that amount with two extra components as swivels are required between chain and handle and possibly between chain and wick.

if you use quicklinks then the swivels temselves are often the weakest part of a poi.

i thinks that's what was being got at.

but vanize already said everything helpful that i can think of

So was my suggestion a good one?

Im all confused now...

Cole..You confuse me.

I think they're useful for the torque reason mentioned above. It's not too noticeable though.

As a sidenote though, I've saved quite a bit of cash cause all I have to do is take off the clip and swivel and put it onto a different chain. I dont need to buy another 4 poi heads for my meteor and short poi - essential when you're as skint as I am

ColemanColemanColeman!

Where are my pants?

Cool...Vanize you've thought about this a little I see....and there I was thinking I was just spinning crap

Yeah, I meant weak points in the construction...for durability and safety. Had a head fly away whilst having a spin the other night... t'was on the beach which was fine but it took me aaaaages to find it, being night time.

It wasn't he swivel that broke...but it just got me thinking really...

nice one for the thoughts

personally, there nil swiveling bits on my poi, they are very homemade... and i have no problems with the lack of swiveling... the only time i notice it is if im doing hyperloops the chain twists up, but to stop this happening you just turn around and it untwists the other way.
so my opinion is you dont need swivels. but since the poi mentioned above are the only fire poi ive ever really used, i might not know what im missing.

Knoxious, if you are breaking your poi your spinning style is not condusive to swivels. I use welded link chain with no swivels. Granted my poi are long, but I don't have any problems with torque. Since I don't use any swivels, my perspective may be biast, but I don't have any problems. I have broken through dog chain and brass link swivels. I attribute the breaks to my spinning style and I use huge heavy wicks. If you decide to use ball chain, replace it regularly, but I don't suggest ball chain for you.

I have welded link chain with no swivels for my fire poi and I havn't had a problem. Then again my poi are long and the chain is usually wrapped around my hand once when spinning normal. Then I can switch during moves from short too really long. I guess it all depends on style.

I ahve welded link chains, with 500lb spinners at the top only. I find that when shortening up with my big cathedrals and doing buttefly buzzsaw for eg there is a torque that must be compensated for. the heads start to spin and it looks kinda cool actually but I'd like spinners at the bottom too but I'm afraid of breakage.

At a festival once I saw a dude break a poi and said poi hit another guy in the face..lucky he was 'in the mood' cuz he took it fullon and mightve been blinded / bashed. I dont want my poi to do that, so I'm afraid of putting spinners at the bottom where the heat is, especially on heavy heads. Any thoughts on this issue?

Josh

As a fairly crud spinner I don't do buzzsaws or hyperloops, so I find my dogchauns perfectly fine without a swivel. However, I do notice the extra twist in the handle which is a bit annoying. But not too bad. If I do a stall I find it generally sorts itself out to some extent.

Interesting thread!

Yo Cody...as i said it wasn't the swivel that broke..it was a (gasp) split ring...the un-condusiveness was my crap airwraps with big cathedrals.
I'll be doing the quicklink thing as per my ropes from now on...

Note that any hardware rated for, say 600 pound (like the swivels sold on HoP), will not bear that load when heated with fire, you can count on perhaps 1/2 that amount for brass when they are hot, and if you are rough on your equipment while it is hot, then heat fatigue will bring that figure down even further. Even large welded link chain can fail from heat fatigue. So, it is best not to put swivels at the wick end, and always check your equipment before spinning!

Ballchain does need to be replaced on a regular basis when used with fire and needs to be watched a little more closely than sturdier chain, but it is generally well worth the extra inconvenience in my opinion. but this is definitely an opinion thing. Type A couplings are also a bit of pain, but I find that if you really crimp them down, they aren't much of a hassle. Another thing to check before a spin, but it takes all of an extra half second each to look at them.

Also, I have seen 20 gauge stainless steel ballchain used on REALLY heavy wicks and it stands up to it really well even though the owner is very rough with them. And 20 gauge is still lighter than most welded link chain (another advantage of ballchain).

never had ballchain fail when used properly on non-fire poi - even 10 gauge brass endures practice poi, glow sticks, and LED lights well for years and years.