Preparing a Deck Without Ruining It

[All Is One]

I can't stop myself...

How do you catch a tame bird?

You 'nique up on it.

*******************

How do you catch a unique bird?

Tame way.

 

[Whitney]

Unless I missed a reply on this, how do you break in the Tarot of Dreams!?

This thread has been inactive for a while, but I thought I'd answer your question, Cactus. I used the table method on this deck a few months ago. Just go slow and don't do it too much. The cards will crease.

I use the method on some of my stiff decks so that the cards don't bite into my fingers. This way it doesn't hurt so much to shuffle.

 

[KarlThomas]

Excellent thread. I've used this method on two decks since I found out about it, it works a treat. I might have gone overboard, it took one deck, a trimmed Rohrig, more than a week, and a stone paperweight to get them back in flat shufflable condition, but I quite like how they handle now.

 

[Mateo06]

I was wondering if anyone has done this to a Hanson Roberts deck. The one with super slippery, super shiny finish. I think if I poured nuclear waste on these cards it would slide right off... Great cards I just want them to submit to my will... Shuffling doesn't seem to work so well. I have had them for a month, and try to shuffle at least once a day, doesn't seem to work... If you have done it to a Hanson Roberts, pm me pleae.

 

[Umbrae]

I was wondering if anyone has done this to a Hanson Roberts deck. The one with super slippery, super shiny finish. I think if I poured nuclear waste on these cards it would slide right off... Great cards I just want them to submit to my will... Shuffling doesn't seem to work so well. I have had them for a month, and try to shuffle at least once a day, doesn't seem to work... If you have done it to a Hanson Roberts, pm me pleae.

It all depends on the cardstock. As an example, the re-release of the Hermetic – it reeks, years later and it still smells like industrial solvent; the cardstock seems to be a plastic base with zero wood pulp involved. You cannot soften it. The only thing you can do with it is toss it and get a ‘real deck’, it’s a piece of crap, bad print quality, reeks like solvent, cannot be ‘broken’.

You want to take the advertising card that comes with the deck and see if you can soften just it. If you do the two handed table edge slide what does it look like? Does it spring back? Does it sit like some dead thing? It’s supposed to do something in the middle. If it springs to original shape, or stays in the ‘bent mode’ without ANY spring back, it’s a waste of time.

It all depends on the cardstock.

 

[Grigori]

Necromancy...

I tried this method tonight with my original version of the Mythic Tarot which is over 10 years old. It had developed a very marked warp that I really disliked.

Seems to have worked very well, the warp is gone (OMG yay!) and the cards are very soft. There are some inconsistencies in the minor variations between cards which I think will go away with a bit more shuffling (and it's sitting under a heavy weight at the moment to complete the flattening). There are minor but numerous scratches visible on the backs of the cards that are a flat purple colour, but these can't be seen on the side with the images. I suspect the scratches are partly because my table is handcrafted wood with a bit of roughness to the edge.

I'm very happy with the outcome