Hybrid Wicks (How to)

I did a Durbs but didn't see any "how to" threads. so....

Anyone out there using hybrid wicks?

These are definitely my favorite type of wick now. They are easy to make, less expensive than equally sized cathedrals and they burn like nothing else. Once you have the materials, you can throw them together in a couple of hours.

I added a hybrid wick construction tutorial to my homepage if anyone wants to give it a go. The page is ugly but I never proclaimed to be a web designer.

I'm still refining the design so any feedback would be appreciated. The top washer is probably not needed and I'll remove it from the next set. I'm also looking for better ways to fold the wick so it will be stronger with minimal sewing.

Cheers for posting that; I'm sure a lot of people will appreciate the info.

IMO your website is one of the better ones I've seen posted here (by far)- it's simple, well structured and has no gimmicks such as unnecessary javascript etc.

The coding is very clean, did you write the site in HTML?

As a bit of feedback I'd say that the pages with photos on (eg the hybrid wicks page) are a little too wide and require a bit of horizontal scrolling.

Also, you may want to use a bit of simple CSS style sheets to enable you to alter background colours and font styles/sizes across the entire site by editing just one css page.

But overall, I'm heartened to see someone putting up such a good, simple, informative and accessible site

Another thought is the black background/white text.

Although it's almost as readable as black text on a white background, it falls down when it comes to ease of printing (uses a lot of ink).

As you've got some useful stuff that people may want to print off, such as the 'safety' page (again, well done for taking the time to put up some responsible safety stuff) it would be good if it was a bit more 'printer friendly'.

This is where having a style sheet would be useful as then you can just link each page of the site to the CSS sheet, leaving you free to alter the background and text colours across the whole site, and enabling lots of experimentation, even after the site is fully complete.

There are still issues with CSS browser compatibility, for example, I've been working on a site using pure CSS (no tables) which was looking really nice in IE6.

However, looking at it in Opera it was a mess, with the navigation box placed over the text. Being unwilling to go the way of using established hacks to make it work in all browsers I've decided to use a simple table for the positioning, instead of pure CSS.

I think it's fair to say though, that the really useful CSS stuff, such as global control of colours, font styles etc, is OK with 99% of browsers, and, in the few that it isn't, the site tends to degrade into something that is still totally readable (ie it's just the positioning stuff that has issues).

Hey dude

Just checked out your site.

Well done, it's awesome and probably one of the most informative I've come across

Keep it up

Wow! Thanks for that. I'm well into my poi construction (although to be honest, I'm more into practicey stuff than fire) and those hybrid wicks seem like a wicked idea. I'm going to have a go at those as soon as I can afford a bit of kevlar!

Thanks everyone. I'll work on cleaning up the site with CSS and a bit more structure. Thanks for the tips onewheeldave, BTW, your bit on COL 5 was mind blowing!

Once I break in the hybrid wicks and stress test them I'll update the page with more refinements and ideas.

nearly_all_gone - Hybrid wicks only need about 6' of 2" kevlar which is pretty cheap here. Much cheaper than the 16' of wicking you would need for the same size cathedrals.

I have a bunch of other poi designs in the works and I'll add them once I hammer out the kinks. One idea that I really want to get working is the multi-wick rainbow fire poi.

what's that i hear about multi-wick rainbow fire poi?

*waits with eager anticipation*

love the hybrid wicks mtbeer, think i'll be trying out a pair of those real soon. keep up the good work

"multi-wick rainbow fire poi"

Dude, that sounds epic!!!! Let us know!!