Soap Bubble Wiki
Register
Advertisement

Just to provide some ideas on different wand material, sticks/poles and ways to attach your strings see following photos:

Wands 2

Most of the wands are made of woven cotton cord with a polyester multifilament core:

no.. is 3mm, no.2. is 2mm, no.3 are 5mm tri-strings. no.4 are garlands made of the 5mm cord.

no.5 and 6 are tri-strings made of cotton/tencel (67/33%)medical tube (used to cover injuries) with a width of 1.5cm. With no. 5 I tried a double tube (pulled through itself) but it resulted way too heavy when full of bubble juice and not very willing to release the juice at a sufficient speed. The "eyes" in the wands for attaching them to the sticks are simply made using small cable ties. If used with the bamboo sticks below, the "eye" should be small enough to slip it easily over tubing but also to keep it between the 2 pieces of the tubing.

5mmcord



detail of the make of the cotton cord with polyester core


Sticks

An easy way to attach wands to your sticks: cut small pieces of tubing and slip them over the end of e.g. simple bamboo sticks. The inner diameter of the tubing should be a little bit smaller than the diameter of the sticks to keep them firmly at their place.



Swirl

Especially for the larger wands and the garlands I use telescopic polerods (2m to 4m length) with the wands hooked onto the swirls. Both polerods and swirls can be found at fishing shops.

Another way (there are many!) to attach wands to sticks is to use

Hooks2 001

karabiners or similar kind of "hooks" where a lot of them must not be bought! You find them at keyrings or those badge holders that you might get at an exposition or ....
Others you may find at yachting supply shops.
no.1 and 2 are karabiners, a simple aluminium one, the other inox no.3 is a special inox type from yachting equipment, no.4 are from key rings, no.5 are badge holder variations and no.6 is an inox shackle. Preferrably one should always look for inoxidable material!

As a reaction on several questions here some more photos and comments:

I typically make my loops for tri-strings from one part, i.e. I take the necessary length for the loop and then close the loop by making a knot or using a cable tie. Then I make the "eyes" for hooking the loop onto the sticks (methods described above, examples see below). On some, especially smaller, loops I leave the knot at the bottom of the loop which automatically gives a little bit of weight and at the same time helps to close the loop easier (and also prevents the wind from blowing into the loop when taking it out of the bubble solution).

3string 1 1 001

Here's an example of a small loop knotted at the bottom together with a simple method to attach it to the sticks using a Prusik hitch which then is secured by using a rubber ring.

3string 1 001






Following 2 examples of loops attached to sticks with tubing pieces. The eyes in the loops need to be smaller to just slip over the tubing. The smaller loop has eyes made with knots and a knot in the middle of the bottom. The larger one has no knot at the bottom and the eyes are made with cable ties - well one is made with both a knot and a cable tie.

3string2 001
3string3 001







Below a combination of different methods used with a small garland type of tri-string (the form of the "garland" is depicted within the photo): the eyes and the loop closure at the bottom made with cable ties, the middle string is attached to the top using a Prusik knot and is tied to the side strings using a simple overhand knot. With certain loop material like the braided cord shown there are also other possible methods to join 2 or more ropes or parts (splicing) - possibly more elegant but also more work and the right tools should be at hand.

Garland1 001


Splice1 001







Last but not least 2 simple methods to bunch up your loop collection to prevent them from getting tangled (you also can (additionally) put each loop into plastic bags/zip bags. Fold the loop together and wind it over the other hand with the last 2 turns across the first turns and then pull the end through the first turns or fold the loop several times until you have a handy length in which you make a simple overhand knot.

Bunch1 1 002
Bunch1 2 001





As I recently started with testing Bamboo Tape (Rowan Bamboo Tape, 100% Bamboo), I also wanted to see how the tape looks like and behaves when not only used as is but also when doubled, tripled, etc.

Just to give you an impression please see the photo where I am comparing different versions.

Bamboo Tape 004

Up to now I used the single tape (about 2 foot/65cm top string) and the doubled one (1 tape within the other, about 6.5feet/2meters top string). The material is very light but releases the bubble juice perfectly. As it doesn't "drink" as much as e.g. the cotton cord above, less bubbles per dip are the deal. The 2 and 3 strands twisted versions just were a twisting test for the moment. Results on their performance will follow as soon as I had made a real loop with them and get a chance to test.


On special request some details on a garland type of wand

With a garland it's easy to make a lot of smaller sized bubbles at once. It looks beautiful and is a lot of fun, especially for kids. The easiest way to make a garland (credits to Keith Michael Johnson - http://www.kjohnson.info/BubbleArtist.com/Home.html) is to use a normal tri-string of sufficient size, take the middle of the bottom string and join it with the middle of the top string. You now have a 2 loops at the top string. Continue the same way with those 2 loops: take the middle of the bottom string and join it with the middle (now part of) the top string. Do this multiple until you have a garland of a size that suits your taste.

What I'm using and what I - for my feeling - found to be working well:

resulting loops of about 12 to 15 cm (4.7" to 6") at the top string made e.g from a tri-string with a top string length of around 2.4m (~8 foot) and an adequate bottom string of double that length. Dividing it as described above multiple times you will get a 16 loop garland with the individual loops having around 15cm/6" at top.

With that individul loop size most of the bubbles created are around basket ball size.
I also tested a garland with double the size (around 30cm/12" top) of the individual loops (you also can do that easily by making tests with the individual division steps) but I found that the the smaller loops have a better result. With bigger individual loops the bubbles form the loops get bigger and tend to combine with the neighbor bubbles. When one of such a combination pops it's much likely that it also kills its neighbor ;-)

To make the joins between bottom and top string for the divisions I again use small cable ties. That's easy and fast and works perfectly. See following detail photo and a photo during "operation".

BILD1577-1
IMG 7410-1






And here's a small video as promised:

Garland

Garland

Advertisement