Forums > Help! > How to make a levistick?

Posted: 8th Sep 2011
just above the balance point. it may take a few goes to get exactly right
I haven't watched the video (at work) but this is a video to make essentially a levistick. Magicians call it a dancing cane:

A couple of balls short of a full cascade... or maybe a few cards short of a deck... we'll see how this all fans out.

Posted: 9th Sep 2011
For the location of the connection:

You want the location of the hole to be at the balance point between moment caused by the centrifugal force outward and gravity downward about the center of gravity. There are many ways to make this perfect depending on the speed of which you rock/swing the wand/cane. The faster you spin, the closer to the center away from and the slow you spin, the further away from center. For a beginner, I have found that 1 inch above a perfectly balanced 30” wand/cane to be the best. This will change depending on whether or not you have weight on top or bottom. I prefer to use a slightly bottom heavy wand/cane and then place the center ~2.5% of the length.

For your 895mm, I’d say place the hole 20 to 24 mm above the balance point.

Now for the harder part, the length of your loop:

Beginner Flow wands: Hand span past half length. Close enough to stall but long enough to get around.

Magician's cane: Looped (no knots) at 3/4 length to facilitate certain two handed levitations.

Long string is considered anything past 1 full wand/cane/staff length, usually 30 inches or 75 cm.

Loopers/Hoopers or ambidextrous passers will make theirs a little less than wing span but never use the full length.

Double wand (Linked) length is your height if you pass it behind you (magicians) and your height minus your shoulders if you are a front passer (spinners).

The longest I'd recommend (usually rope dart and hammer spinners) is about 1.5 your arm lengths, unless you are very quick at hand wraps.

Other considerations:
Decoration – Make sure you use something bright to catch people’s eyes a hoop glitter tape works well.
String – Definitely Kevlar thread if you are using a fire ward. Coats and Clark Dual duty for most applications and their 0.004” black nylon if you are a magician.
Weight – Your dowel will work well for now, but considering air drag, a slightly tip heavy (more rotational inertia without a lot more weight) tends to work better for keeping your wand/cane perfectly upright.
Rods vs Tubes. – tubes are lighter for the width of wand, they can hold much, much more fuel, and can hide the string inside when used just as a baton.

That’s all I can think of for now. Good Luck!

Posted: 16th Sep 2011
My question on this topic is whether, if you over-weight the top or bottom, you can successfully compensate for this by moving the string hole up or down. I'm making a light-up one, and i'm trying to figure out how to balance the electrical components. If the batteries and such are at the top, should I be trying to find an equal weight and sized something to put at the bottom to balance it out? Or can I put something really small but heavy at the bottom and understand that my balance point will be off-center? Does that affect the flow of this?

Posted: 17th Sep 2011
I haven't tried it but I would have thought the thing to do would be to find the balance point of your finished stick with all your mods on and work from that.

IMO you'd want to keep it as light as possible overall.

Posted: 26th Aug 2012
Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I'm making my own to give to friends & possibly sell at festivals.

Do most people prefer a weight on the bottom? If so, any idea how much? Why do you prefer the weight?

Do you prefer finger loop, hand loop, or full loop for the string?
(personally I prefer hand loop. I don't catch the string on the stick as often as I do with the full loop and it still allows me to switch hands easily which I can't do with a fingerloop)

What colors do you like best? Metallic, fluorescent, dark, wood with burnt design?

Posted: 6th Sep 2012
sould be a large single loop so it can be passed easily from hand to hand. You can also do a lot more tricks with a full loop like spinning levitation between hands and a few others that I have from my magicians tutorial video.

should be no additioinal weight, just stringed slightly above the balance to aid in keeping upright. and i mean JUST above. however if it is off you can always add a bit of tape to get it just right and mix it in with the decorations.

A couple of balls short of a full cascade... or maybe a few cards short of a deck... we'll see how this all fans out.