Levistick

I decided to go for the brass model purely for the extra weight. I find the heavier models alot easier to keep on plane and for stalls etc. Was also worried about how the lighter models might react with a breeze. Only fear I have with the brass is the heat transfer as I am intending on doing some doubles stuff with them. Will be lighting mine up tonight hopefully so can get some real experience with them.

Might try and get a few photos of it before i light it up tonight, might come in handy for anyone considering getting one.

Completly agree about poi skills transferring to levi, alot of common ground between them. Although even if you have no experience with any object manipulation it seems to be one of the easiest toys to teach. Took my salza to a family dinner last night, within 10 minutes my 8 year old brother was addicted to it and already getting all the basics in forward and reverse.

Seems like a very suitable toy for kids in general, quick to learn, low danger, basic material requirements and well...a heap of fun!

Oh and brenn... what happened?

I was contemplating the LED ones as well.

Any news on them?

I'm intrigued about your report on Brass vs. Aluminum. I was leaning towards aluminum for some reason. But brass seems to handle better.

Also, the levi stick I was playing with this weekend was using kevlar string which kept breaking. Is that the same stuff that your stick has? It must have broken 4 times in the 20 minutes I was playing.

Yes, a full report please.

Wondering why/how that happened. Again, I'm thinking of buying one and would certainly steer away from something that easily breaks in half.

Hmm.. i have one and from the look and feel of it and the way you have to handle it you would have to try pretty hard to break it during general use. I suppose the string could wear through but that is probably to be expected like with a diablo.

That said it would not be hard to break or bend it by accident when you are transporting it or storing it. Thats why i keep mine in a little postage tube with a few other delicate props.

I am yet to experience any of the LED levi's, only seen the photos on the salza site. I have personally not had the best experiences with that style of LED. For that reason alone I am not really interested in buying a set. I know that Prisna from flowtoys currently has her own LED levi (couple of photos on their site). Last I heard they were hoping to move it in to production sometime next year, will also apparently be an upgraded version of what she is currently using.

So i'm just sitting back waiting for something to come out basically...

I probably should have mentioned that I tend to stray on the heavier side for most of my toys. Need to get get some other hands on to these and get some other opinions.

Yes mine is using the kevlar string. They do come with a little pamphlet explaining it wears out and that you should regularly check etc... Will have to check to see if i had an approx amount of burns. They also supplied some replacement string for about five replacements. I admit I am slightly concerned of it burning through, but if you are vigilant it should be fine. In terms of practice, I have been using mine on the original string for two weeks now, it appears to have some wear (a bit fluffy, nothing more) but doesn't appear to much of a concern. I have a spool of the HoP string somewhere, so will probably move on to that once i run out.

Replacing the string appears to be a simple procedure, but hard to say since I haven't done it yet.

Just dropped by home and lunch and postage slip is there! Woohoo! Now just have to wait 3 hours before I can go collect it, i'm sure that time will fly by

We bought a flowwand a few months ago and I have had two glow wands and two fire wands from salza quite recently.

I tock my glow wand to common Ground and everyone seemed to think it was effective.

Going from a flow wand to the glow wand was a bit difficult... Flow wand seems a bit more stable, stays vertical easier while the glow wand does tilt very often and you have to be gentle then more forceful then gentler again to avoid the tilting.

Also, since the flow wand is so thin, the string (two strings) which come from it are quite thin... while the glow wand is a lot thicker so that the strings that are coming from it are further apart, and therefore there is a wider area that you can hit the top of the stick to the string.
I combat this by spinning the wand first so the strings are wrapped around each other, and are therefore thinner and harder to hit.

Also, the Glow wand's string is a lot longer so it is possible to put an entire hand, or two hands in the string in a noose...

Flow wand I put one finger in a noose.
Putting it around one hand means it can spin easier above your head without hitting your other fingers...
I was also told that with an entire hand in the loop (the string is around four fingers below my knuckles, but not including my thumb...) it means my fingers can make more movement and be more 'magical' and expressive, while before when the flow wand was around my middle finger, there was less finger movement possible...

We have a problem with one of our glow wands in that the leds change colour rapidly, but at different speeds (noticable when you co-ordinate them and after a bit they are no longer in time...) Though I think this may be an individual fault rather than overall...

I'd love for it to have Concentrate type controls so I could vary the speed of colour change or have a single colour... but these are the only glow ones we found on the market...

Any questions, just ask

Wow! Fantastic reviews and explanations. Thanks guys!

Which brand levistick did you find the leds to be colorchanging at different speeds? (it actually would be tougher to coordinate them to change at the exact same speed I'd think...)

I guess my questions should be more fundamental.

Which fire and which non-fire wand should I start out with?

Can you give me a sense how to chose between metals of the salza site? And is it the salza leds that you have experience with?

I'm thinking of ordering a fire and LED from salza but would love more info before I order.

Thanks again!

Don't quote me on this... but I think salza are the only ones out there with LED levis atm.

Personally I would be putting my vote towards a flowtoys flowwand. They are a very friendly levi and I find it slightly more forgiving than the fire ones. I believe they also have a UV tipped version at the moment, I will be ordering one next wednesday to replace my old one so can give a full review then. Lent out my old one to someone in August for a week and haven't seen it since...

Also the flowwand I would imagine you wouldn't need to be as worried about bending.

With the firewand, once again have only had experience with brass so hard to compare. What I will say is that not one person who has used mine has complained it has been too heavy. That includes being used by my 8 year brother, friends girlfriends, etc... and they have all had no issues getting the basics. Obviously though, still haven't felt it fully fueled up but I don't think its going to make a huge difference with the size of the wicks and the drag. Didn't get to burn last night, storm came in straight after dark, BAH!

Will send you a pm about my LED experiences.

Took a whole heap of photos of the new equipment yesterday. Just need to wait until I can get a copy off my friends camera and will throw them up in my gallery.

Great to see some interest in this toy!

Does anyone know much about the availability of the materials to make ones own levistick?? Its what... fibreglass tubing, a small weight, end caps and fishing line, isn't it?

Whats the availability of fibreglass tubing of that size??

That should be just about it, has anyone made one with success?

I know a few people who have attempted but no one ever seems to really have success.

Alternative to fibreglass with end caps, could probably be an aluminium design with wood cores at the end. Might be easier to find than fibreglass.

Would also love to know where to get suitable fibreglass though, could be used for a huge range of toys...

Good idea on the aluminum design... Brass could work, too. I don't see any reason why the design for fire ones wouldnt work with non fire ones... just needs a bit of weighting added in.

I had success mucking around trying to make some out of things i had in the shed. I made one from a piece of threaded rod and a piece of dowel which both worked quite well. I didn't put any weight on the ends.

I also made a fire one out of the threaded rod which worked quite well though because i only had enough Kevlar for one wick i had to attach the string higher up on the rod.

Hmm, indeed, threaded rod wrapped in colourful tape might do well.

I probably should have mentioned, with the brass salza ones they only work one way. I haven't checked yet to see whether that is because of an offset hole or slightly more weight at one end, but if you hold it just by the string the stick will always have rotate to have the same head at the top.

Either system would work as well as one another, I daresay. Though I think I'd rather the weight so I could feel how it topples over if I'm going to incorporate spins into it at any point.

Anyone got any comment on that?

Yeah my LED one is from salza.

I thought it would be easy to co-ordinate LEDs.. shouldn't they come in different frequencies. We bought two so our other one changes at the same frequency... I don't know yet whether we'll try to change it or whether we'll just use that one, knowing it looks different.

""I probably should have mentioned, with the brass salza ones they only work one way.""

Don't ALL levisticks only work one way??

I would suggest that beginners get a flow wand because it's lighter and easier to use...

But the salza fire and glow ones are very good... Though if you buy a fire one and then use it without experience you could burn the string...
The glow ones, I guess I newbie could pic it up, I just found it much easier to learn on Flow wand.
Sadly flow wand wasn't enough for our shows, which are done in the dark.

Sorry made that post while I was at work and fairly rushed, should have thought more before typing

Wasn't really aimed at anyone in particular, just seemed worth throwing in if talking designs.

haha, i totally have a love/hate relationship with those postie slip things.

wow im so excited everyones so in love with levi.. ok well maybe just tones BUT yeah rather have gotten into it since first (and last) post by me.. i got the flowtoys one - which i HIGHLY reccommend its by far the best thing that every happened to me. i picked it up rather quickly and totally agree its easy to pretend to be good at but then challenging when you run out of ideas, im sure u guys know what i mean. am thinking that spinners that have a more movement based focus will be for the win with the levi..

how does the fire levi go tones? cmon i want some youtube action..
and brenn did u ever get to light yours up? and bummer ps!

My order with salza has had no response. No email confirmation and I sent them an email later and got no response to that. I'm curious about whether or not I'm actually going to be seeing a delivery any time soon. I'm a little annoyed about it.