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What are peoples favourite methods for this?

And favourite type of newspaper to use?

Am practising the Joshua Jay version from his "Complete book of magic" and is quite nice, am currently using Tabloid sized freebie local papers

Newsflash by Axel Hecklau is by far the best version I've seen.

That is really quite beautiful!

Found a nice version from 1939 as well

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rWcCuNYcrc

Axel Hecklau's Newspaper Tear looks very good but my understanding is it takes some significant time to set up the paper and costs quite a bitof money for the instructions and DVD.

Patrick Page's Ten Second Paper Tear is very easy to set up (it takes 10seconds to set up). But the downside is you have to read the instructions in his book quite a few times to get on top of it and there aren't many diagrams and an instructional video of it being performed is very difficult to find. It is in his book The Big Book Of Magic (very cheap to buy I think).

Alfred Borden wrote:That is really quite beautiful!

Found a nice version from 1939 as well

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rWcCuNYcrc" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

This version that Robert Harbin is performing is not Axwl Hecklau's version, it is Gene Anderson's version. My understamnding is that Gene Anderson's version was once the most popular but relies on a broadsheet newspaper which are now hard to find.
I think it has something to do with the grain of the paper going from top to bottom of the paper rather than side to side, which is why Harbin is tearing from top of paper to bottom. Most UK newspapers are now printed in Tabloid or Berliner format.

Hope this helps.

The classic Gene Anderson's (but with a completely different gimmick). The Anderson version can be done with any size paper, the direction of the grain doesn't stop the trick, you just have to do the first, longer, tears in the appropriate direction.

Thanks a lot for tips guys, I'm going to give the Joshua Jay version a go as I quite like the set up

It was going to be for a childrens gig anyway, so Alex Hecklau's might be lost on then anyway, and not sure about the use of flash paper anyway

It is quite brilliant version though, I did watch the YouTube clip quite a few times!

It sounds like you've got your version now but I thought I might as well pitch in!

I've recently been experimenting with Gene Anderson's newspaper tear, it takes quite a while to prepare but after a bit of practise I find the handling much easier than a few other of the methods out there.

A couple of UK newspapers still have the 'grain' the right way, so I just stock up on those to practise with!

aquarog wrote:It sounds like you've got your version now but I thought I might as well pitch in!

I've recently been experimenting with Gene Anderson's newspaper tear, it takes quite a while to prepare but after a bit of practise I find the handling much easier than a few other of the methods out there.

A couple of UK newspapers still have the 'grain' the right way, so I just stock up on those to practise with!

All suggestions greatly received, thanks

I think the version I'm working on will work well in a children's show AND I must stop buying!