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re: adhesives - I imagine the stuff they stick free CDs/gifts to the front of magazines would be good. That really stretch, really stick stuff - just peel it off secretly in the newsagent and keep it clean until you want to use it!

I am not sure if this will help, but being a fan of The Web, here is my tip if you are getting "rumbled". (for it 2 cents worth )

I have yet to be rumbled with it and this could perhaps be to do with the load.

When puting your hand under the spectators and loading, I leave my hand there temporarily as i am showing there cards and slowly move the inside of my palm away first to ensure the plant is successful. This need a small amount of practice as to the spectator it should seem nothing has changed. keeping your hands over the spectators for the rest of the trick (as long as is possible) should prevent the spectator from turning their hand over before you want them to.

Doing it this way means the plant can be very light, and the feel of your fingers on the sides of their hands should cover the feeling of …well - you get the picture.

In summary :
a) don’t “push” the spider, just let it barely touch.
b) perform as much as possible over the spectators hands.

Hope this helps.


Mark

Sexton, I got this recently and was a bit confused by the sticky at first....are you peeling both sides off the sticky?

Farlsborough that's a great idea, I'm going to try that.

If all else fails, I guess it's back to increasing my collection of sticky bogies

dark-side wrote:Doing it this way means the plant can be very light, and the feel of your fingers on the sides of their hands should cover the feeling of …well - you get the picture.

Thanks for the advice, Mark. My loading technique was actually very similar to that - perhaps I did 'push' a little harder, but really no more than would have been natural because I was raising the hand into a new 'correct' position. I never really worried about the spider being spotted ahead of time (falling off, yes, but not spotted) as I thought there was enough inate cover and stuff going on to occupy the specs' attention.

I suspect whether the spec feels it or not might be like hypnosis or something. Some people are easy to hypnotise (I don't do hypnosis, by the way; this is merely an analogy), with others it's just not going to work: the skilled performer is the one who can spot which is which and choose accordingly. You, it seems, have, well... Spidey Sense, I suppose.

magicmonkey wrote:Sexton, I got this recently and was a bit confused by the sticky at first....are you peeling both sides off the sticky?

You have to, don't you? You need both sides to be sticky because you're sticking to the spider and the hand. I rubbed my chin for a bit, but then followed the advice in the enclosed instructions: 'roll a small ball of adhesive'. Now, this may well be a hangover in the text from when an entirely different adhesive was included, but there seemed to be a place on the spider to take a 'small ball' and so I went along with it. It didn't fall off, at least.

When I've been caught out it's been because the legs of the spider have pricked the spec.

yes...forgot to mention that....

ALWAYS bend the legs backwards. Trust me - the spectator will not be wondering why the spiders legs are raised above its body.

I performed this for the first time today.. six times.. got away with it every time..

The sticky I had on the spider like normal.. tiny sqaure piece on the bottom.

Take the specs hand... and 'adjust' it to where you want.. load the spider.. hold your hand there.. I say ' Dont worry relax..' then go into the trick..

A little tip.. when you load it... keep you fingers kind of bent like spider legs so they touch the back of your specs hand.. then any pricks will feel like your fingers..

Have fun with this... I made a big 19stone beefy arrogant so and so scream....''' AAGHH..get it off.. get it off '' That was priceless

I've only done this as a 1 off trick. Where do you keep it prior to loading it into your hand ? (ie. so that you can load it quickly without anyone noticing and without it becoming entangled because it's sticky or losing it's stickiness because it stuck to something prior to loading)

a) the stuff is actually what the ladies use to stick false nails onto their dainty little girl fingers with. Look in boots/superdrug etc

b) I think it's a dangerous trick to do. You are risking, everytime, that you are going to do this on someone scared of spiders, I think it is irresponsible to take that risk.

The butterfly alternative is much better to do, I reckon.

In WHSMITH

you will find 'Glue dots'

these i find are perfect

so much so that after the first scare of the spider reveal the dots are so sticky that they stay there!

so no more running around a dance floor trying to find a plastic spider that learnt how to fly!

hope this helps

sam

There is a product called Gorilla Snot. Not sure if you can get it in the UK but it works wonders.