From falls & poppers to plaiting & cracking technique, this section is dedicated in memory of Sergei, IndyGear Staff Member and Whip Guru. Always remember to keep "Celebratin' Life!"
Oh yes, I've seen them....well, on line, never in person.
I think they should have named their Survival Whip the Dino Whip instead, (their model that DWARF's the Morgan in the picture at the bottom of the page, because, you know...bigger is ALWAYS better.) I think calling the Survival whip the Dino is much more fitting...
Cause, just like Jurassic Park, they were so excited about figuring out if they COULD, they never stopped to think about if they SHOULD.
In terms of nylon whips, my money's going to Steve "Jabbahutt" Huntress...
LOL....I have actually been thinking of trying to make one. I had envisioned a much much smaller version. The idea I had was to make the handle out of one of those cheap survival knifes with the compass on the end. More like a Florida style cow whip than a bullwhip. Just a gimmick idea, but alas beaten to the punch.
You need to have a screw end on the handle, so you can try to crack it and fail a couple times, then unscrew the end, pull out the old batteries, put in fresh ones, and then crack it loudly.
You know, just to confuse people and perpetuate old myths.
I've seen knife thrower and whip cracker, John Bailey do this in his act when he's performing for children. He uses a special Florida cow whip for it. It's pretty funny. Then he explains that it actually DOESN'T use batteries, and how it works. Then he throws knives at his wife Monica, (I can throw knives at people and miss too, but John makes it interesting and relatively safe! Me, not so much.) Fun stuff!
But you know, doing something PRACTICAL with it like putting a fid inside the screw-off section, and then using the handle to store replacement poppers and a spare fall, or something like that would be pretty cool.
I'm sure Steve's normal whips ARE good, but it just reminds me too much of the product that tries to be EVERYTHING to EVERYBODY, and ends up being bloody useless for all of the above. While "One-Size" might "Fit All" that typically means that it "Fit's All" badly.
I tend to prefer my tools separate from one another. Now when designs are sound, (like my 1st Gen Leatherman and Gerber PST,) that's fine, but most combination MP3 player/cel phone/portable computing device/video game consoles have so many compromises to cram all that @#$% in, that they don't do ANY of them well, (though I am eyeing the 3G iPhone because I need to upgrade my phone anyway, and the new lower price on the low end model...which is all I need...is actually affordable, and the ability to use internet protocols over WiFi rather than solely cellular networks is appealing. And I actually like that while they've crammed all that @#$% into that little black rectangle, it's still usable. I miss my laptop!!)
I actually know Steve, and he does indeed make quite a whip....I've never seen or discussed the Survival Whip in person, but I don't think he does much business in them....
For that matter, the now-long-gone 'Cattle Baron Leather Co.' used to make a nice-looking hollow-handle 'survival whip' when that style of knife was popular....Guess it's a logical step...If something has a handle, how can we 'make it better' by making the handle hollow and filling it with 'useful stuff'? It's inevitable. Not necessarily wise, but inevitable.