Splitting a card is a scary proposition, when you have never done it. Actually it is not that hard, and can be a bit of fun.
To start, either bend a corner of the card back & forth, or tap the card corner on the table, to begin the separation of the layers – be careful not to crease the card. As the card starts to split, you will see three distinct layers: the card back, the card front, and the middle layer.
Depending on what gaff you are making, will determine which portion you need to split off.
There really is nothing more to splitting cards than peeling them apart… there is no magic method. Peel the sections slowly, if you rush you are more likely to tear it. The hardest part is getting the first to corners. Once you have one whole side, it goes easier.
But keep going slowly! This is not a race.
As you can see in the picture above, I did tear the card a little. Luckily for the gaff I am making, that portion of the card will not be used. I was going slow and trying to be careful, and it still tore.
You will tear a few while learning… then you will still tear some no matter how careful you are… such is life.
For this example I was splitting just the card face, to make two Fiedler’s Flier force card gaffs. The read about the Fiedler’s Flier see THIS blog post.
If you are making a double backed card, you would split the back off one card, and the back & middle of another card. When you glue them together you will want all three layers. You can peel half the face of two cards and make split indexed cards. There are a lot of possibilities as you get better at card splitting.
Click HERE for video instructions on card splitting and crafting a Fiedler’s Flier.
