As a member of the Penguin Platinum Club I got this early.

I thought from the ad and the demo that this was a gaffed rubber band trick and that the supplies were gimmicked bands.

THE BANDS ARE NOT GAFFED!

One rubber band melts through the other. He turned his hands to show all sides and one band WAS clearly running through the other. This doesn't even seem possible. I LOVE gaffs. Not because they make things easier, but they tend to allow things that you can't get with just sleight of hand. What I just Casshan Wallace do should take a gaff to accomplish.

What an incredible follow up to CMH this would be. The band can then just "melt off" the other band into the audience members waiting hands.

You can see that at 00:12 into the demo

Casshan is an excellent teacher. He goes through everything slowly and clearly and then you get an explanation with the camera over his shoulder. No quick or unnatural hand movements to perform this. Everything is done slowly.

I am in love with this routine!

Cons:

#1 - The final get ready move is something you "have to get a feel for." Even with a lot of practice, it's really a challenge for me personally to get this 100% of the time.

#2 - The setup does take a couple of seconds after practice...but easily covered with patter.

#3 - The second effect took quite a few views to see the last phase

Pros:

#1 - This is totally impromptu (no gimmick)!
And uses normal bands!

#2 - The main effect is amazingly visual! And taught very well from both angles....pretty easy to learn.

#3 - The angles and subtleties are really good!

#4 - The second handling ok, but with a quicker set up

#5 - The Crazy handcuffs version is GREAT!

#6 - The 3rd effect is a nice, easy, quick band through finger trick...I'll be using it.

Just received this in the mail yesterday so watched last night. This is for sure one of the nicest, cleanest, slowest band penetrations I have ever seen. Casshan has really done a nice job creating this little masterpiece.

However, the filming is TERRIBLE. Everything is SO dark, it's very hard to see throughout most of the DVD what Casshan is even doing. Camera angles also really lack. He's doing stuff that you have NO idea what he's doing - no camera angle covering 'move'.

I will have to watch this several times to really figure out the handling. While Casshan does his best to explain what he's doing, the camera is not helping him, and I can't figure why the background is so dark.

The sound is fine; but the visibility of what is happening has much to be desired. Casshan also includes some bands with the DVD. Haven't counted them to see how many, but am guessing 2 pair, different colors.

This DVD should really be reshot, with better lighting and better camera angles. To have such a powerful Rubber Band effect taped so poorly, with today's technology, just isn't right. And those who have already purchased this 'poorly' shot DVD, should receive a FREE copy of a better shot DVD. Just my opinion.

I gave this 4 stars because of the poor lighting and poor, missing camera angles and again, like Rubber Thru Hand by Dan, a little pricey at 20 bucks, for one trick. 9.95 would have been very fair.

Melting Point deserves better production quality than this guys.

I'm looking forward to getting this figured out. OH, Casshan also offers some nice personal touches on Rubberband thru finger and the classic Crazy Mans Handcuffs. Very nice extra touches. If you are a beginner with Rubber Band magic, I would not recommend this, due to the poor lighting and camera angles. If you are a rubber band enthusiast with some experience, I'm sure you'll figure the moves out. Thanks Casshan for sharing this. Once you figure out the setup involved, which can probably be done quickly on the 'offbeat'. Casshan actually suggests doing a few other band tricks first and doing this last.

Dear Penguin-ites, :)

My Penguin package arrived this morning and I popped the Melting Point DVD in this afternoon.
Here is my review I left at the Magic Café:

From a still-beginner’s perspective: Melting Point is offered at such a bargain price for, what I gather from the experienced magicians, is really as ground-breaking as Bill Cushman's "The Dr’s Billet Tear". If Dan Harlan, a rubber-band king, praises Melting Point it has to be very very good.

The Lord has blessed me with being able to earn a living as an inventor and, as an inventor I recognize that the "idea", as simple as it may be, is everything. The "pop-tab" on an aluminum soda can is a good example: what a simple idea but what a gift from God that idea came to be for the fellow from Belgium who invented it.

He did so in his spare time while working on an assembly line in Lynchburg Va. (my home) at Belvac Tool and Die. The inventor earned over 75 million for the idea. People had complained for years about the former "throw away tabs" citing the damage they did to animals and fish who swallowed them and how easy it was to cut your foot stepping on one. The little fella from Belgium changed the canning industry in a major way with just a simple idea. What a great story and what a great example of how simple things can have huge impact.

The reason I related that story is that I think "Melting Point" is worth SO much more than the price being asked. I don't have a magician's experience to make this statement, just "ordinary guy" experience...but as an ordinary guy: This is the greatest rubber band thing I have ever seen!

I don't know "rubber band" magic at all. I have shied away from it thinking it would be too difficult to learn and a disaster to perform (at least in my hands). But then I saw the trailer for Melting Point and read some of the Cafe's thoughts on it. If ever I was going to try to
learn a rubber band illusion...well then, why not swing for the bleachers? :)

For me, as good an effort as Casshan made at teaching, it was still hard for me to learn his illusion. LOTS of DVD rewinds. I even photographed still images out of his video lesson with "Snag it" so this tired old brain could learn things one simple step at a time.

But, boy oh boy was it worth it!!! This gifted young magician allowed me to swing for the bleachers with his new standard in illusion and as I watched myself finally perform it all I could think was:

HOME RUN! HOME RUN! IT’S GOING OVER THE FENCE!! YAY TEAM!!! :)

I met Casshan at magifest this year. i asked him to show me a trick and he pulled out this bad boy. I kinda stopped what I was doing and grabbed the person nearest to me to make sure that I was really seeing what i was seeing. It is that good.

I love doing this for other people because it is so clean looking and so open. The illusion is fantastic and amazing. Some people may have some issues with the [edited to protect secret] at first, but just take some time and work on this and you'll be adding it to your magic rep very quickly. I used to think the rubber band links i did were good, but this is way better!

Docked half a star for the poor quality of the recording and poor quality of the teaching. Had to watch the DVD a few times to understand the instructions correctly. However, once learned it is a killer effect. If you do it really slowly, it even feels like they are melting through each other right under your fingers. Hopefully the DVD will be re-shot for future buyers.

I met Casshan at Magi-Fest this year and I saw him perform this and I was blown away! He really put some work into making a beautiful, ungimmicked linking rubber band trick. Great job!

I really enjoy Melting Point, but I thought the set up was a little dodgy and not something easily done in front of others. I love that he includes CMH and "Band Through Finger" as well. When you get to the second video, he offers a much cleaner set up and lots more detail about the handling and subtleties that he's clarified due to feed back. Nice work and I'm glad I bought it.

The Point Of "Explanation" Is To Have The Buyer See What The Audience Does Not.
In The Critical "Where It All Happens" Portions Of The Video The "move" At The All Important Moment Was Not Clearly Demonstrated Or Explained.
Try Making Up Some Text Files And/or Diagrams To Add To The DVD So That Grandma 10 Minutes After Purchase Would Understand The Method. There Have Already Been Enough Complaints About Explanation To Justify Adding Noes And Diagrams To The Forum. Penguin Should Have A Reputation Of Excellence To Maintain, Do It Today And Get The 5 Stars The Routine Deserves And The Sales That The 5 Stars Generate.

Casshan makes it look so easy, but the handling takes quite a bit of work. I don't believe there is an easy way to get into the startup of the trick either as it does not involve any natural moves to be in the start position. You have to mask your moves with patter, which is doable, just awkward. I love the trick, but my ratings are based upon the overall effort to get into position, perform and let the audience inspect. This has 2 out of three nailed, and it is a nice looking effect.