Evildmanmember
46 posts
Location: Oregon


Posted:
An I dea has just struck me at work that I would love to try, and thought some of you may be interested in.

I am a Devil Sticker primarily, but as I have recently moved on to fire, I have ben expending my talents, and learning staff and poi.

Unfortunately, unlike my nice compact DS I cannot bring a practice staff to work to play with on lunch and breaks. So I practice what staff moves I can with my DS. For those who have seen me here before you know that I use a nice balanced and tapered set of Todd Smiths.

I have found that I really like the way the weight is distributed along the stick, due to the taper. And the taper seems to make it a bit easier for me to track when I am doing contact moves and such.

Now at home for my real practice staves I have a galv. steel conduit which is heavy, but evenly weighted throughout, and a dummy fire staff, which is wooden, with heavy steel pipe nipples on the end to simulate the weight of torches. And of course the feel of the end weighted staff is better, especially with contact moves.

So to actually get to the point I am wondering if anyone has tried making or twirling with a full staff with a double taper design.

I would make one myself, but unfortunately I do not currently own a lathe. However I may do some experiments when I get home tonight, with a regualr staff, and a whole lot of duct tape

I would appreciate any comments or feedback anyone else here may have.

We are all atheists, some of us just believe in fewer gods than others. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
-Stephen F. Roberts


[Nx?]BRONZE Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
3,749 posts
Location: Europe,Scotland,Both


Posted:
its a good idea, tho i dont quite see the diffrence between that and just weighting the ends, shure the weight distibution is gonna be more even, but why would that help?

T

This is a post by tom, all spelling is deleberate
-><- Kallisti


Evildmanmember
46 posts
Location: Oregon


Posted:
Well, from the way I see it, the more evenly you spread the weight out from the middle toward the ends, the more gradual the shift would be as your grip moved farther out from the center of the staff. I believe that this would ultimately lead to more control over the staff.

Additionally having the staff tapered toward the center cause the staff ot be faily self correcting when doing contact work. For example when I roll my DS from my palm down my forarm, if I start out a bit off center, or not quite ballanced, it takes very little effort to correct the move. Since the tick will automatically try to center itself bue to the rotaional speed differences caused by the different diameter of the stick contacting each side of my arm.

It also seems to make the stick less likely to travel when doing any type of palm spin, or other flat spins.

All of these are reasons why the Devil Stick is shaped the way it is in the first place. I will be on a quest this week to find a friend with access to a lathe.

I think I can get the effect I want on about a 2-3 inch diameter hardwood dowel turned down to about 1/2 - 3/4 of an inch in the center.

Any other thoughts?

We are all atheists, some of us just believe in fewer gods than others. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
-Stephen F. Roberts


TheApprovingNinjaFrom the Ashes of a Ninja Rise THE HIPS OF RAGE
371 posts
Location: Edinburgh


Posted:
that be a good idea, i'm currently in the process of unpacking my garage which contains many toys such as metal lathes and big machining machines and I'll give it a shot once I get all my stuff sorted.

Viva UGLY STAFF


DurbsBRONZE Member
Classically British
5,689 posts
Location: Epsom, Surrey, England


Posted:
quote:
Originally posted by Evildman:
... and a dummy fire staff, which is wooden, with heavy steel pipe nipples on the end...
Hee hee - he said nipples!

Burner of Toast
Spinner of poi
Slacker of enormous magnitude


Evildmanmember
46 posts
Location: Oregon


Posted:
-TAN-

You mention having a metal lathe...
I find myself wondering how good you are with it.
If you do have decent skills I have an item I would like to make to experiment with. One that requires access to a metal lathe, that once again I do not have.

I have been wanting to make me an aluminum devil stick for my show.

In order to keep the weight down, but still strong enough for DS stressis, it would need to have a hole drilled lengthwise in order to remove approx 40-45% of the mass. Once this is done it would need to have a progressive taper from about 1.75 inches at the ends, to about .75 inch in the center. If you have the ability to make this happen, send me a PM and we can work out some details.

For anyone else who is interested, the final step on this would be to tap and thread the ends so it would have detachable torches, so it could be used for day, or fire play.

We are all atheists, some of us just believe in fewer gods than others. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
-Stephen F. Roberts



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