On an extreme high level, I will embellish a little bit on the diagram:
- Heel and Handle Knots
Are braided on either end of the handle. The vary from whip maker to whip maker, but David Morgan's is unique and often copied. These knots are braided on on the very end of construction.
- Handle
The handle is typically formed around a nail spike anywhere (typically) from 8 to 10 inch long. This area is built up with bolsters and usually a final diamond pattern is braided on the overlay portion of the handle. From the diamond pattern there is usually a transition to the thong of the whip, that is braided in a "herringbone" pattern.
- Thong
The thong area in a typically constructed American Bullwhip is braided on as as overlay on top of the 2 bellies underneath. The thong is braided in either a 12 or 16 plait or strands if it is made of Kangaroo hide. Cowhide whips are typically 8 plait or lower. As mentioned in the Handle description above, the thong is braided in "herringbone" weave, that has 4 distinct seams. A mark of a good whip maker, is that each seam is straight. It is not suppose to wonder about, but the seam should maintain a true line.
- Keeper
The keeper ties up the final package of the braided portion of the whip. The Keeper or what I call the "Half Hitch" area, is formed by using a series of half hitches that allows the Fall to be slipped into a shaft formed by the half hitches.
- Fall
The Fall is a piece of rounded leather made out of red hide or white hide , cowhide. The fall is supposed to be made tapered, that follows the same diameter of the end of the braided part of the whip and slowly tapers to a point on the end. The whole purpose of the fall is to protect the braided portion of the whip from the constant abuse. The fall provides this protection and is made to be easily slipped out and slipped in with the new fall when it becomes too short or too ratty.
- Cracker
The Cracker is usually a piece of 6 inch twisted nylon thread that provides the final taper of the whip. This is the final part of a whip that actually breaks the sound barrier. Crackers suffer a lot of abuse and provide protection to the fall. Crackers are very easy to replace and should immediately be replaced whenever they break away from the Fall.
Below is one method of attaching a cracker to a fall. There are many others but this is the basic one:
And I encourage everyone to check out the "Whip Link" section at the Indygear site for many more methods of attaching at cracker (popper) as well as MANY other topics, http://www.indygear.com/gear/whip_links.shtml
including Kyle's , my favorite attachment method (http://skyvalley.net/~shold/Cracker.htm
I hope this helps. And keep posting or emailing for any other questions that need answered.
-Sergei
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