A few days ago, I managed to find about 20 minutes to do some bubbles. Conditions were not ideal -- temp. was a nice 65 fahrenheit but relative humidity was only 45% and the breeze kept changing speed and direction. It was a sunny day. So, I did the bubbles in shade as much as I could.
The goal of the session was to compare three tri-string loops with approx. 36-inch top strings. Two of the loops were provided by Steven L. of SBF. Both are 3/16" diamond-braid cotton cord that have had their cores removed. One of the cords is made by Lehigh (and is available under various names such as Wellingon. At Walmart, it is sold as SecureLine cotton cord and runs $3 for 100 feet). Steven's other loop was from 3/16" cotton clothesline found at a dollar store. Its braid is a bit finer than the Lehigh cord. The other loop is a homemade 3-strand rope that I made (using an electric drill) from 3 strands of the cotton butcher twine sold at Bed, Bath and Beyond.
I have a new video cheap Kodak video recorder that I used to record the session. There were a few setup problems that have made it difficult to use the video to draw any definitive conclusions. There were two problems:
1. The nominal focal length of the lens changes when the camera is switched between 720P and 1080P modes. I switched the resolution during the session in order to be able to compare them not realizing that at 1080P the lens would show a narrower field of view than at 720P.
2. The bubble tubes were sometimes so long that the entire tube sometimes was not in frame -- which makes size comparisons difficults.
When I did the test, I did about 10 dips of each wand. At session's end, I had a strong impression of which loop was "best". However, when I reviewed the footage, something happened that should no longer surprise me. I saw that my realtime impressions were quite mistaken. The loop that made the worst impression on me in realtime, seemed to create the biggest tubes.
Here are links to videos made with each of the cords. Unfortunately, the video setup leaves enough to be desired that one can't draw too may conclusions other than that each of these loops is capable of creating very big bubbles.
For the time being, I will keep the identities of the three loops secret -- as I am curious as to what the feedback will be and don't want it tainted by knowledge of what the materials. are. The bubble juice was 11 parts tap water, 1 part Dawn Ultra and 1 oz. of BLM per gallon of bubble juice and 2.5 oz. glycerine per gallon.
I recommend that you watch these in full-screen mode at 720P.