Impromptu Snapped and Restored Elastic Band

The magician uses any elastic (can be borrowed) and visually snaps it in half. With a little rub of the elastic, it has magically been restored.

Pictures

1. Hold the elastic streched out

Bring the two ends together and hold them with your right thumb

Hold the elastic like so, with the two ends in your right thumb

Drop the elastic in your hand and rub it lightly without them seeing its already together

Method

All you need it one whole elastic. Thinner the better.

First stage is to set the elastic up in the position for the trick. You do not want the spectators to see this, unless you can do it fast. Stretch the elastic with both your index fingers and thumbs. (Photo one).
Bring the two ends together and hold them with your right thumb and index. Hold the ends very tight together. Stretch the elastic around to make it look like a normal elastic, but make sure that you hold onto the two ends very tight. The spectator should not be able to see that it is an overlapped elastic if you stretch it enough. Also the thinner the elastic, the better. (Photos two and three)

Now that you have the elastic set you can go ahead and 'snap it'

To snap the elastic you will pull hard on the elastic while asking the spectator, 'what happens when you pull an elastic hard enough?'. They will respond,'it snaps'.

Once they do, you lightly release the pressure from your thumb and index which are holding the two ends together and let the ends 'snap' (photo 4).

To show the two ends that are 'broken' off you will need to hold the folded over ends very close to the tip and keep the elastic very stretched. Once you practise this move, you will notice that when releasing the ends properly they will make a snapping noise.

Then quickly drop the elastic in your hand (without them seeing that it is actually whole) and rub it gently. Say a few magical words and show them that the elastic is whole again.

Comments

PicklePhantom 24th May 07	An actually VERY good trick devinci! What I would do though, is use a thumbtip with an already pre-stuffed brand new elastic. I would stuff the broken one into the tip ( by cover of hand) adn pull out the new one. Looking as it has been restored!
dummyisdumb 24th May 07	hmmmm, i've heard about this one before, it's just a little hard to make it look convincing
ddustin 24th May 07	Aww Man! I submitted this trick and it got rejected, you submitted first :( I think its a great trick though, it can fool a lot of people.
Yexo 24th May 07	It does seem very good, but it must be obvious how it is done if not mastered. That is why it is always great to have a trick mastered before performing it. ;) ...
sasuke14 24th May 07	i know this trick and i do it all the time and it is really good to do around little children and i see you added the hand thing at the end so its original good work
devinci 24th May 07	Thanks for the positive feedback guys.
dasuprememep 25th May 07	This is nice for something quick, but it isn't really going into my stage act, if you know what I mean ;)
Phate 25th May 07	It's a nice trick, nut you can't have people standing to close, or they'll see the ruber band isn't really broken. Still, I've performed this many, many times, and only two or three people caught me: my mother, my sister (9 years old, she is really smart!) and one of my friends. Good trick for everyone, especially the people that perform for little children.
claw 25th May 07	I saw Cyril perform this to a cute Japanese girl on youtube. That's where I learn it. easy to figure out though. But allways works to laymen. Cyril pretend to hold the two ends (there are no real two ends) after restoring the rubberband and the cute girl thought he is really just holding the two ends to make it look like it was restored. The girl wants to pull the rubber band out of Cyrils fingers tightly holding the band which she thought to be the snapped ends. She astonished when Cyril relea
Kevmaster 25th May 07	i like this trick, i think it should be higher than access level 1
Taishin 26th May 07	Very nice ^^ Simple effects are more often than not the most astonishing! Besides this is something you can do on the fly, and I find impromtu magic is always a good little thing to have handy to live the part of the magician you portray, keep the illusion alive so to speak
magicman2011 26th May 07	It seems like a very good trick. You probably cant do it twice without them noticing though. keep up the good work devinci!
devinci 28th May 07	I am actually very glad this was put to level one. I love this trick and i wanted to share it with EVERYONE, not just higher access levels. I have a few more simple, impromtu tricks ill come out with soon that you guys might like.
taytasmagi 1st Jun 07	at first i thought it would be completely obvious, but performance is everything. heres how i perform it...i "snap" it, then i ptetend to connect the two pieces back together...(NOT SAYING im gonna put them back togethor) just saying that something crazy might happen. then i have the spectator put their hand out palm up to receive the rubberband, then i stick the apparently broken one in their hand and have them covor it up with their other hand. i tell them that according to logic...friction
MasterMenalist 13th Jun 07	sounds like a good trick to me, thanks.
leon2807 30th Jun 07	When I perform this I pretend to tie a knot in the two ends and kind of bunch up the whole elastic band and hold it between thumb and finger before placing onto my palm and gently rolling it on my hand until it all pops open as a complete band again. Try it.
manomagic 17th Jul 07	Your right it only works with thin bands. I find it helpful to bend it so the wide part is folded over and not the side flat pancake lookalike part.
wheelson 1st Nov 07	lol i would have never thought about that, That was clever and only took like a minute to learn
dragon74 7th Dec 08	very nice trick! I love office tricks!
tokico 2nd Jul 09	Good trick... It's very easy to do. Great to impress someone at the office! :D
GreatAndrini 23rd Jul 09	One of the first ones I learned, and I still love to use it. This one, combined with fusing two rubber bands into one, is a great quick routine.
Gazea2 3rd Oct 09	Good trick!

Related Tricks

Key Smash
The spectators keys are placed under one of three cups, then the blindfolded magician smashes the two cups without keys!

Tricky Torn and Restored Napkin
The magician shows the audience how a napkin is torn & restored, when the torn pieces are revealed though - they too have been restored!!