BEFORE YOU BEGIN

Note: All the tricks described in this part of the book are harmless and perfectly safe to do. However, several of the chemicals can be harmful if misused. Therefore, you must follow the directions and do the tricks only as instructed. Do not experiment with them beyond the directions given here unless you are supervised by an adult who has had training in chemistry.

All the chemicals are easily rinsed off with water. The oils, paint thinner, and phenolphthalein solution need a little extra washing with soap. When washing phenolphthalein off your hands with soap, the suds will turn pink. When you have finished each trick, carefully throw away all the used material and clean all your utensils.

Do not taste any chemicals. Be careful not to get any into your eyes.

Do not inhale ammonia (other than that which escapes into the air while you are doing a trick).

When doing any trick with fire, have a jar or pitcher of water handy to use as a fire extinguisher, in case of need. Protect the desk or tabletop with a cookie tin or some other suitable item.

When using iodine, protect the tabletop with a thick batch of newspaper, placing a layer of aluminum foil in between one of the layers of paper.

Finally, do the trick exactly as instructed and you will have no trouble. You will have only FUN.

At the back of the book, you will find a listing of all the chemicals used for these tricks, where to get them or how to make them easily, and how to use them safely.

MAGIC FLOWER

This is a dramatic trick which you must prepare ahead of time. You will need Q-tips, tincture of iodine, concentrated cabbage water, phenolphthalein solution, copper sulfate solution, turmeric solution, ammonia solution, water in a small glass, ball-point pen, and typing paper.

On a sheet of typing paper make a simple outline drawing of a flower, sun, and sunrays using a ball-point pen. (Do not use felt-tip or fountain pens, as the ink will run.) Make it large, something like the illustration. Using the Q-tips as paintbrushes, a different one for each "color," fill in the ball of the sun and the sunrays with the turmeric solution, and the center of the flower with the copper sulfate solution. Paint the petals with the phenolphthalein solution, and the stem and leaves with the concentrated cabbage water. When the picture is dry, the sun, sunrays, center of the flower, and the leaves and stem should each be a faint color. The petals will be colorless. 

You are also going to paint clouds and raindrops. The paint for this is an iodine solution. To prepare this, put enough tincture of iodine into a little water to make it look like strong tea. (See page 34 for tips on using iodine safely.) But the clouds and raindrops are painted in only at the time you do your trick. You can do this as you tell your story.

To do the trick, you might start with a story like this: You were out early on a misty spring morning and were disappointed because the day was damp and gray. Nevertheless you picked a flower, the first flower of spring. Show your picture of the flower and tell them that is the way it looked to you. Tell them that later the sun came out, dried up the rain, and brightened the flower. At this point, wet a paper towel with the ammonia solution, and wipe it across the picture. The sun and sunrays will brighten up into a deep warm orange color, the clouds and raindrops will disappear, and the flower will bloom in bright colors: red petals, blue center, and green stem and leaves.

This trick works because the cabbage water, turmeric, and phenolphthalein are what chemists call indicators. They indicate the presence of an alkali, or base, by changing color. Ammonia is an alkali, so it turns the phenolphthalein pink, the cabbage green, and the turmeric a dark orange color.

Ammonia forms a dark blue compound with copper sulfate.

Iodine and starch form a blue compound when mixed. Most writing and typing paper has starch in it to make it smooth. So when you paint clouds and rain on the paper with iodine, the drawing appears blue. Before your performance try out a sample of your paper to be sure this will work. Ammonia forms a colorless compound with iodine, so that when you wipe ammonia across the picture, the blue clouds and rain disappear.

DEEP PURPLE MAGIC

This is a quick, fascinating trick. You will need a few clear (not colored) glass bottles or jars—baby food jars are good—a bottle of tincture of iodine, and some mineral oil, baby oil, or paint thinner (mineral spirits or "subturps").

Fill a bottle about half full of water and add enough iodine to make it the color of tea. Hold it up so everyone can see the amber-colored water. Slowly add some of the oil and hold it up again so everyone can see the clear oil floating on the water. Tighten the cap and shake the bottle hard for a half minute.

While shaking, tell them that you are going to transfer the iodine from the water to the oil, and for good measure you will change the color from amber to purple.

When you are through shaking, stand the bottle where everyone can see it. They will see the two layers slowly separate. The bottom layer will be much lighter in color, and the upper layer will be a beautiful purple color.

This trick works because iodine really is purple, not brown. It is brown in tincture of iodine because of a chemical trick to make it soluble in water. Iodine is naturally soluble in oils, where it shows its true color. In this trick we demonstrate this fact. When we shake hard and mix the oil and the water, the iodine moves from the water into the oil.

MAGIC TEA GLASS

In this trick you will turn "tea" into "water." You must have a clear glass pitcher of water into which you put enough tincture of iodine to color it a nice amber tea color. Into a clear drinking glass put several crystals of sodium thiosulfate (photographers' hypo), and a teaspoonful of water. When you pour the "tea" into the apparently empty glass, the amber color will disappear, and the "tea" will seem to have changed to "water."

Your patter might go something like this: "I have a Chinese friend who drinks an awful lot of tea. I am going to play a trick on him. I am going to give him a gift of a magic glass like this one, and when he pours tea into it, the tea will change to water." At this point pour the "tea" from the pitcher into the glass. You can emphasize the trick by repeating it. Pour most, but not all, of the liquid from the glass. There should be enough hypo left in it so that you can pour again from the pitcher and have the liquid lose its amber color. Work this out well before you try it in front of an audience.

This trick works because hypo forms a colorless chemical compound with iodine.

WITCH'S DUST

You will need several sugar cubes, matches, a saucer, and a small quantity of cigarette ashes.

To do your trick, put a sugar cube in a dish and ask one of your audience to set it afire with the matches. They can try again and again, but the sugar will not burn. It will sizzle and melt, but it won't burn. Then you tell this story:

"I have here a jar of certified genuine witch's dust. I know that it is genuine, because it was given to me last Halloween by a real witch. It is made from the scraping from the bottom of her kettle after she made her brew of toads, lizards, and weird things like that. It is dried and ground into this powder. The witches use it to draw fire—lightning—from the sky to start their fires. I will show you how efficient it is."

Then rub a small amount of the ashes on a fresh sugar cube and say some magic sentence, like "Dust of bones and witch's attire, I command you to draw some fire." Put a lighted match to the sugar cube. It will start to burn with a nice blue flame.

The sugar burns after you put some cigarette ashes on it because the ashes act as a catalyst. In chemistry, a catalyst is something that starts or helps along a chemical reaction without itself being changed. Catalysts are important in many chemical industries, and are widely used in oil refining.

You can expand on the magic power of the witch's dust as follows: Before the demonstration, out of sight of anyone, write the word HEX on the back of your hand with a piece of wet soap. After the fire trick is done, tell your audience that you are going to brand yourself with the powder left over from the fire. Sprinkle some on the back of your hand and pat it down. Wince and make faces as you do it, as if it were painful. Then show your hand. The word HEX will be visible where the powder sticks to the soaped skin.

If you have a sink or a large pan of water handy, you can continue with the following. You must have prepared for this by painting some phenolphthalein solution on your hand and allowing it to dry.

After you have displayed the HEX on the back of your hand, tell your audience that you were really branded. You will wash off the dust and blood. Wash your hands with a bar of soap; the soapy water will turn bright red. Show the audience how much "blood" there was. After you have cleaned up, and the back of your hand shows no scars or damage, you can say, "Oh well, magic is magic, and with my magic powers I have healed my hand so you cannot see where it was branded."

This trick works because soap is made from fat plus a strong alkali boiled together to form the chemical compound we call soap. When water is added, some of this compound breaks down so that there is some free alkali in the solution, hence the red color with phenolphthalein. That is why some soaps are more irritating to your skin than others. It depends on how much of the alkali is freed in the solution.

SECRET WRITING

For this trick you will need phenolphthalein solution, ammonia, tincture of iodine, a few Q-tips, paper towels, and typing paper. Mix some of the ammonia half and half with water.

On a sheet of white paper, using the Q-tip as a pen, write the word SUMMER with the phenolphthalein solution as the ink. Allow it to dry thoroughly. The writing will be invisible.

Into a small jar with a little water in it, pour enough of the iodine to make it look like tea. Almost all writing paper has starch in it, and when you write on it with a Q-tip using the iodine as an ink, the writing appears blue. Before your performance, check a sample of your paper to be sure this will occur.

To do your trick, tell a story of how it takes three months to go from winter to summer. But after a few cold months you are in a hurry for summer, and can't wait. So you will turn winter into summer in a few seconds. At this point write the word WINTER with the iodine solution. It will be in blue letters. Wet a paper towel with the diluted ammonia and wipe it across the word WINTER. The word will disappear, and in its place will appear the word SUMMER in bright pink. When the ammonia evaporates, the word will disappear. But it can be brought back again with more ammonia.

You can change BLUE to RED, circles to squares, or anything your imagination comes up with.

The reason this works is explained on page 36.

MORE SECRET WRITING—MAGIC CANDLE

This is a trick where you write a secret message with a magic candle, and make the writing visible with some magic tea. You will need sheets of paper, a candle, some tincture of iodine, a jar of water, paper towels, and some old newspapers.

Prepare your "magic tea" ahead of time. Put ten or twenty drops of the iodine into a small jar of water so that it looks like tea.

Write the invisible message on a sheet of paper using a candle as a pen. Any candle will do. Use ordinary pressure on the paper. Lay the sheet on a table that is protected by several layers of newspaper. Wipe the sheet with a paper towel soaked with the "magic tea." The sheet will turn blue, and the message will remain white and clearly readable.

The reason this works is that the paper contains starch, and it turns blue in contact with iodine. But the candle wax prevents the iodine from touching the places where you have written.

You might tell some story that the magic candle was made with tallow from the sacred cows of India, and the tea is also imported from India.

MAGIC WET FIRE

This is a dramatic trick where you show a piece of cloth completely in flames, yet it is not destroyed. You will first need a piece of cloth. Half of an old handkerchief will do fine. You will also need pliers or tongs to hold it, rubbing alcohol (70% ethyl alcohol) from the drugstore, a dishpan with some water in it, matches, and a pitcher of water to use as a fire extinguisher in an emergency.

The fuel used in this trick is made of two parts ethyl rubbing alcohol and one part water. To make it, put one cup of alcohol and one-half cup of water into a jar. Use your mother's measuring cups for accuracy. Rinse the measuring cups. Label the jar so that you know what it is the next time you need it. Do not store it where someone might accidentally drink it! Be sure to label it, "rubbing alcohol fuel."

While you are doing the trick, burning alcohol will drip from the cloth. This must be caught in the pan of water, where it will immediately be extinguished.

Your patter might go something like this: "Here is a jar of magic fuel. It can burn itself, but won't ignite anything else. As soon as I work out a few details, I am going to sell it to the utility company for use as a household fuel. While you could cook with it and heat your house, there is no danger of burning down the house. I will demonstrate."

This trick works because there is too much water in the fuel to sustain the fire. When you mix the alcohol with the water your resulting fuel is 50%, or half, pure alcohol. As soon as enough of the alcohol burns off so that it drops below 50%, or half, the excess water puts out the fire.

RED, WHITE, AND BLUE

This is a nice Fourth of July trick. In this trick you fill three glasses from a pitcher that seems to contain only water. The first glassful turns red, the second white, and the last blue. You will need a pitcher, ammonia, phenolphthalein solution, epsom salts, and copper sulfate.

Put a half inch of water into each glass. Into the first put five or more drops of phenolphthalein solution. Into the second put about a teaspoonful of epsom salts, and into the third put a quarter teaspoonful or less of copper sulfate. Swish the glasses around until the chemicals are dissolved. Line up the three glasses on a table. It might be a good idea to put some books on the table in front of the glasses to hide the liquid in the bottoms of the glasses. Hold up each glass, covering up the bottom part with your fingers. Tell your audience that you will fill these glasses from a magic pitcher which is in tune with the holiday. The liquid in the pitcher should be half ammonia and half water.

Fill the glasses from the pitcher.

This works because the phenolphthalein is an indicator; it turns red in the presence of an alkali, as explained on page 36. The copper sulfate forms a deep blue substance with ammonia. The epsom salts and magnesium sulfate —when mixed with an alkali—form a heavy white substance, magnesium hydroxide. This is an impure form of milk of magnesia.

MAGIC KETCHUP

In this trick you write a word on the bottom of a copper-clad frying pan with ketchup.

You will need a copper-bottomed pan, ketchup, and some paper towels. To prepare for this trick, heat the pan dry on the stove so that the bottom turns all colors. Allow it to get cold so you don't burn yourself. The best way to handle the ketchup is with a plastic squeeze dispenser with a pointed nozzle.

To do the trick, all you have to do is write a word on the bottom of the pan with ketchup. You might even lick some off your fingers to show how pure it is. Leave the pan alone while you tell your story. After two or three minutes wipe off the ketchup with a damp paper towel. The word you wrote will appear in bright shiny copper. Do not eat any of the ketchup after it has been on the copper pan. You can ask your audience to count the time for the two or three minutes. This will keep them more interested in waiting for the outcome.

You might tell your audience that the trick was taught to you by your grandmother. She didn't want you to eat so much ketchup so she told you, "Look what it does to my copper pans. What will it do to your stomach?"

The trick works because ketchup contains salt and vinegar, an acid. These two ingredients combine with the tarnish, and leave the bright copper.

When you have finished, wash the pan well before putting it away so there won't be any dried-up ketchup on it to burn when it is used for cooking.

MAGIC INK

Prepare three glasses which will look empty. Into the first put a few specks of tannin, into the second a few drops of ferric chloride, and into the third a few crystals of oxalic acid. Put a half teaspoonful of water into each to dissolve the chemicals before you start.

Fill the first glass half full with water. It will look like pure water. Pour this into the second glass. It will turn dark blue or black, like ink. Pour this "ink" into the third glass. It will become decolorized and look like water again. Then pour this into the sink.

This works because ferric chloride, which is an iron salt, forms a dark blue substance with tannin. The oxalic acid forms a colorless, soluble substance with iron, so it "bleaches" the dark "ink." Old-fashioned liquid blue inks were iron-tannin mixtures.

MAGIC GREEN FLAME—1

You will need an empty soda can, a saucer, matches, methanol or Sterno, and some boric acid. You should also have a pitcher of water handy to use as a fire extinguisher if needed.

Do this trick in a darkened room. Into the hollow of the upside-down can, which sits in a saucer, put a small quantity of the Sterno or methanol and light it. It will burn with an almost invisible blue flame. Then sprinkle some of the boric acid over the flame, and it will change to a beautiful green flame.

You can tell your audience that you have some volcanic dust from the green island of Hawaii, and that it has the power to change a flame from blue to green.

This works because boric acid contains the element boron. Boron burns with a green flame.

MAGIC GREEN FLAME—2

Here is a simple green-flame trick. You will need a piece of old copper screening, a candle, and some long wooden kitchen matches.

Light the candle and hold the screen in the flame. None of the flame will go through the screen, but some of the smoke will. Hold a lighted match in the stream of smoke. The match flame will burn with green edges.

You can tell your audience that you have a magic screen and magic candle, the same as described on page 42. Tell them that the magic screen filters out the yellow light and lets the true green flame through. Your trick will be more effective if you use a green candle.

This works because some copper from the screen goes into the hot candle smoke as gas. The match ignites this gas and the copper burns with a green flame. Scientific instruments can show that this is a different green from the green of the boron flame.

OceanofPDF.com