Shortly after I got bitten by the big bubble bug, I began to be curious about the materials that people use for their tri-string wands, and I was surprised at the lack of consensus about what materials make for a great tri-string wand. There seems to be a general consensus that polyster is bad -- and my personal experience with it is in sync with that opinion. But, you find people making awesome bubbles with both very absorbent materials that hold a lot of solution (like mop yarn and upholstery piping and cotton clothesline) and much thinner materials -- such as a strand or two of yarn or cotton twine.
Out of laziness, I started with a single strand of the general purpose cotton twine that I mostly was using to truss chickens for roasting. I also tried some cotton clothesline. Even though I couldn't get a lot of bubbles out of the single strand of twine, the size of the bubbles was not dramatically smaller than the cotton clothesline (which later turned out not to be cotton at all) and it wasted a lot less bubble juice. Granted I didn't get as many bubbles per dip of the wand but the bubbles were beautiful and quite big (tubes 20 feet long were not uncommon). Also, the number of big bubbles per quart of juice was quite a bit higher than with the clothesline because the single strand wasted so much less juice than the clothesline.
I remembered reading on Keith Johnson's blog that he was braiding butcher's twine to make his tri-string loops. I tried that and while the results were pretty good -- it was way to time-consuming for me. I wanted to have quite a few identical loops for testing purposes. So, I started hunting for information about DIY rope-making. I found some cool rope-making machines and plans for rope-making machines -- but I wanted the loops now. So, I kept searching.
I found a few interesting techniques that all involved using a hand-drill to twist and then reverse-twist strings together to make rope -- the technique is popular among Yo-Yo enthusiasts who can make custom Yo-Yo string from thread. After some experimentation, I found a technique (which I will describe in a separate post) that was quite easy and quick.
So, I started experimenting with thin ropes (made from 1 to 4 strands of cotton twine) and comparing the results. It seemed to me that a 2 or 3 strand wand both gave more dips of the wand than a single strand but that the bubbles were slightly longer. The 4 strand ropes however were no better than the 2 and 3 strand ropes -- and they wasted a lot more juice.
I was getting great bubbles out of the 2 strand ropes--so, I stopped exploring the materials in order to focus on bubble juice (time is finite after all -- and I was happier with my wands than my juice).
Over the months, people have very kindly sent me some of their favorite materials -- I haven't had time to be very disciplined in my comparisons but I have been finding that my personal taste tends towards those loops that:
- Are forgiving in terms of closing off bubbles
- Don't waste a lot of bubble juice (partly because I brew a lot of small test batches and want to make the most of them
I also began finding that I have been gravitating (partly out of personal aesthetic) towards wands that are self-closing. These wands are light enough (and usually without any added weight -- such as washers) that the surface tension of the bubble solution is enough to close the loop as the loop gets lighter as it loses its juice.
I noticed that the materials that seemed to provide the biggest bubbles were materials that have a lot of 'space' in them. I.e. lots of loosely woven fibers. Juice doesn't just get absorbed it also fills those spaces. I was also thinking about the ribbing on plastic wands and realizing that those fluid filled spaces are possibly the key to the ideal material. The fluid in the space is more easily pulled into the bubble than fluid actually absorbed into the fiber.
This made me realize that my homemade ropes were possibly twisted to tightly. They feel strong and like "real" rope -- but I don't need real rope. The rope doesn't need to be strong -- it needs to hold and release bubble juice. So, now I am experimenting with creating the ropes by twisting the strands (and reverse twisting the groups of strands) only as much as is needed to keep the rope together -- but not so much that it compresses those spaces that I need filled with bubble juice. These ropes seem 'less professional' and in danger of unraveling but they seem to be better at holding and releasing the bubble juice.
I will expand this entry in the coming days (or weeks) with pictures demonstrating the differences and also with my experiences. I have not yet thoroughly explored these loosely wound ropes but it seems like the right direction.
I'll blog the directions for making the rope/cord soon.