Poi decisions personal opinions please

Right well I am new and have masterd a few basic tricks but I now want some fire poi and im confused with the differant types an which will be best.
sky

well, for all the arguements pro and con, frankly there isn't a HUGE difference between wicks.

I personally make my own, but frankly for the price, convenience, and overall useability, the basic cathedral wicks from the HoP shop are hard to improve much on and a great option for your first set of wicks.

as far as overall setup including handles, chain, etc,... well, I won't get into my "ballchain is god" sermon, as I'm sure you'll see it somewhere eventually anyway. And besides, one poi setup is not so terribly different from another and it takes a lot of experience before preferences will mean much to you.

Yeah, totally agree with what Vaize said above, as a relative beginner myself I bought the 2.5 inch tube core wicks from the HoP shop, made my own handles with swivels and just bought dog choke chains. It worked out a little cheaper and I know I can trust them.. all the people who spin around here use these, although I'm not sure if that's just because we're copying each other! They're what I'd reccomend though, simply because they're the only ones I've had experience of beginning fire with!

Anything they sell in the HoP shop will probably be fine though.. I'd say avoid cables/wires as opposed to chains, as they kink easily. Personally I wouldn't go for the 2inch wicks, but the 2.5 simply because they give a slightly longer and bigger burn, but I think that's a matter of personal taste.

Oval link chain cos you won't need to worry about changing it so much and as far as I can tell, doesn't harm performance compared to ball chain. I can't tell the difference, anyway.

2.5" tube core wicks for a beginner cos they're lighter and less scary. Unless you're a big strapping bloke with no fear of big burny fire, in which case go for the cathedral wicks. Cathedrals do tend to unnerve some beginners.

"oval"





*ballchain*

Ball chain > Oval link when you get a bit more advanced IMO. Tangles and buzzsaws are much easier with it.

you know, in Russia we don't have any kevlar and all this stuff that is sold here. So we have to make poi using other materials,
for example - the best and the less expensive variant is glass wool, you know that is used to heat the roof, and for building purposes. So, you take glass wool and wrap it into the glass fibre cloth of just metal gauze (i don't know how it's really called in english). And tha most surprizing thing is that... it works!
Ah! I've forgotten, inside of it you should put a metal hair-roller and hook a ring for the keys to it. Good luck!

Black Muffin, that sounds insane!!

Is the glass wool stuff safe to use?

absolutely safe!!!!! I swear! Of course you can't use it as it is, because it's quite friable, that's why you need to wrap it into (as I've already mantioned) metal netting/gauze. This construction is very suitable for stuff also!

Wow.
It's amazing the different tools people will use around the world.

A friend of mine in Cambodia has built his own LED staff using a coloured light and a spiral-twisted piece of plastic inside a plastic tube (ahem... slightly simplified explanation )

It seems to work quite well going by the pics
x

Yes!!! It's really great!.. And I've also made Fire Fans by myself...

Nice! I bought two really light rake-heads from the hardware store which I am going to magically transform into fire fans... as soon as I stop being lazy

rake-heads? Whats that? My first fans I did of old broken umbrellas. It's really the best, as they are extremlely light!

oh, that'd be good too.

Rake heads are the things people use to rake up the leaves in their garden. (put on the end of a handle)

I just tried my first set of cathedral poi with ballchain. They are so much better than my self made ones: longer burning, great control and lovely reflextions on the ballchain... I just love them.

But someone tell me the difference between ball and oval link chain please.

TUBE CORE SUCKS!!! ITS HORRIBLE!!! dont use it for poi...
-end rant

you can get burnt by any chain...keep that in mind
and ballchain has this nasty habit of cutting the skin

TUBE CORE SUCKS!!! ITS HORRIBLE!!! dont use it for poi...
-end rant

why?...i've used them for awhile and i like them?

I used tube core for a while and I liked them. it was more the metal chain I had attached that was hard to wrap etc.

Cheers for the explanation about ball and oval link chain.

And, vanize, maybe you wanna catch up? I'll most hopefully and probably be in Germany in July and visit some friends in Berlin...

besides they look crappy, they dont burn for very long, and the metal burns the hell out of you...ya know...3 reasons for ya right there..
tube core=teh antipoi