MovieChat Forums > Shanghai Noon (2000) Discussion > Wet shirt braking jail bars trick

Wet shirt braking jail bars trick

posted 12 years ago by actionjack-895-625719
15 replies | jump to latest

is it really possible?

Wet 100% silk cloths are virtually impossible to ripped. I suppose if you have enough strength you can bend steel bars but not break it.

[–] Nikon11 12 years ago

Please explain the physics behind that.

[–] ChilliCheeseDog 12 years ago

Please explain the physics behind that.

A silk strand is much finer than a regular strand of thread.
If an average cotton shirt have 500,000 strands of cotton threads, that same size shirt in silk would have at least 7 million strands of silk.

[–] Nikon11 12 years ago

Thanks - but I meant the water making it stronger.

[–] ChilliCheeseDog 12 years ago

Not a real "science" explanation.:=)

Even something as finely weaved as a silk shirt there are empty spaces between the threads, but when it's wet all those empty spaces are filled with water making the cloth solid. A solid thing is always stronger than a thing that is full of hollow spaces.

[–] Nikon11 12 years ago

Hey, that's a pretty good explanation. I don't know if it's right - but it sounds good. Thanks.

[–] kwestmo (4114) 3 years ago

I guess that is why Batman's batrope in the 60's comics were silk.

[–] noofy311 11 years ago

Mythbusters tried this one and it was busted. The silk cloth ripped every time.

[–] eoval 11 years ago

Did they pee on it themselves?

Hippies.They're everywhere. They wanna save Earth, but all they do is smoke pot and smell bad.

[–] aaron-3088 9 years ago

Jackies character did jiggle the bars looking for a weakness in the structure or the jail bars did MB take that into account ? The science is solid to a point ?

[–] zee944 9 years ago

Mythbusters are a bunch of idiots. They didn't even get it right. They've tried to bend much, much shorter bars, which god knows how many times harder to bend than the long bars in the movie. If their grasp are so poor of physics, why they're the ones who do a show about it? Is this some kind of compensation of stupidity?

[–] atlas-06 9 years ago

@zee944: If you paid attention, you would have known that the whole point of the myth (as was mentioned by Jamie and Adam) was to find out if a "Wet shirt doesn't break." The size of the bars in question doesn't matter. The shirts, wet or not, tore very easily, hence a wet shirt absolutely will "break".

[–] zee944 9 years ago

No, it was never the point. "Wet shirt bend bars." That was the point. The typical jail bars, not just any metal bars with optional length and thickness.

If MythBusters needed proof if a wet shirt EVER breaks, and they needed bars to try that, that would make them even more stupid than I originally thought.

[–] atlas-06 8 years ago

They weren't necessarily trying to find out whether or not a wet shirt would "EVER" tear or break (that's just silly); but rather whether or not a person would have the strength to tear a wet shirt in attempting to bend a pair of bars by utilizing said shirt and a piece of wood. Also, Adam himself said, "The theory, the myth, is that wet silk doesn't break." You can confirm that yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yrz7b0FSB5M. So, yes, the point of the myth was as I had previously stated.

In any case, the shirt tore with such minimal force that I believe they made the right decision in not bothering with longer bars (I wouldn't mind seeing it, but I doubt it would have made a difference).

[–] shiningforce82 7 years ago

Getting some modern 1" or so in size rebar, and a silk shirt shouldn't be too hard. Then some wood and basic construction skills and pit it together. Test it out. Now modern rebar probably isn't what jail cells were made out of, in fact the majority of old west jail weren't made with bars but wood or pits or other methods of restraint, but I digress... The point is it would cost maybe 100$ to test and video it. Then put it on YouTube and views might pay for one of the nails used in construction lol!