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!"
Needs a wee bit o' tweaking and hasn't been shellacked yet. But here it be. It was a whiskey leather I had, but not enough left over to do the knots, so I went black, and because I'd learned the 7 part 6 bight knot recently, I did my best to KOTCS it up.
It had a few problems that I don't know how to overcome. Some less than stellar looking plaiting if you look at it closely (strands overlapping to much, or just looking a bit sloppy in the way they cross over each other or what-have-you) and I have some bumps in the middle of it that I don't know how I ended up with. I'm gonna spend some time trying to roll them out though. We'll see. Overall I feel like it turned out pretty good though.
My wife keeps telling me not to wear shorts to crack whips. I, of course, have ignored this advice. Lesson learned the hard way. Feel free to laugh...both at my stupidity and my chicken legs.
Drop strands less often next time because the last 2-3 ft. of your whip has little no taper.
Also, it looks likes you might not have pulled the strands before tying your fall hitch ( or didn't pull them tight enough ) because there seems to be a sudden bump in the last set of strands before the fall hitch.
The fall not tightening up enough could be a couple things. First thing it could be was that when you tied the fall hitch, you tied it too far down the fall ( where the fall is really thin ). You want to tie it partway down the fall, but not to the point that won't come through the hitch fully. It's something you'll have to work out over several whips.
Another thing it could be was a mixture of what I first mentioned, and that you were tying the knot really tightly. It's good to tie the fall hitch really tight, but if you start near the point of the fall, and tie it really tight, you may get this problem. If you start 6-12 inches from the eye of the fall and tie it tightly, then everything should work out right.
Another thing is that you might not have pulled it hard enough. Especially with stiffer leathers like alum tanned latigo, it's hard to pull it tight enough up without it breaking. You have to be really careful about how you shape the eye of the fall so that it has enough strength but also that it isn't too wide.
Something that can cause that, but not on the intial fall, is the fall size. For instance if your first fall was, at it's largest 6mm wide and 3mm thick, then you tried to put a fall that is 7mm wide and 4.5 mm thick, you'd either have a really hard time getting the fall in, or it may not go up to the eye at all.
It could be any one or a combination of the three, or something else all together that I couldn't think of.
Thanks! If you look closely at it under good lighting, there's some definate problems. But it's an overall improvment from my first whip. So, next whip...even better!
riku1914 wrote:Drop strands less often next time because the last 2-3 ft. of your whip has little no taper.
Also, it looks likes you might not have pulled the strands before tying your fall hitch ( or didn't pull them tight enough ) because there seems to be a sudden bump in the last set of strands before the fall hitch.
The fall not tightening up enough could be a couple things. First thing it could be was that when you tied the fall hitch, you tied it too far down the fall ( where the fall is really thin ). You want to tie it partway down the fall, but not to the point that won't come through the hitch fully. It's something you'll have to work out over several whips.
Another thing it could be was a mixture of what I first mentioned, and that you were tying the knot really tightly. It's good to tie the fall hitch really tight, but if you start near the point of the fall, and tie it really tight, you may get this problem. If you start 6-12 inches from the eye of the fall and tie it tightly, then everything should work out right.
Another thing is that you might not have pulled it hard enough. Especially with stiffer leathers like alum tanned latigo, it's hard to pull it tight enough up without it breaking. You have to be really careful about how you shape the eye of the fall so that it has enough strength but also that it isn't too wide.
Something that can cause that, but not on the intial fall, is the fall size. For instance if your first fall was, at it's largest 6mm wide and 3mm thick, then you tried to put a fall that is 7mm wide and 4.5 mm thick, you'd either have a really hard time getting the fall in, or it may not go up to the eye at all.
It could be any one or a combination of the three, or something else all together that I couldn't think of.
Yeah...I noticed that I had no taper at the end. So good pointer. I changed the plating from over 2 under 2 to over 1 over 1 for the last little bit there and it changed the shape a bit. I'm not excusing it...just explaining. It may have made it harder to pull tight. ???
I think you hit it on the head with the shape of the fall loop. I cut the fall from 7mm to 5mm, but then carved it round, but I did tie the fall hitch pretty close to the loop (a few inches at most)...so I think it's the loop itself.
It can be more difficult to pull diamonds than herringbone, but with strands that thin and with only an 8 plait, along with the strands being greased it shouldn't have mad that much of a difference. Really if anything it seems that after being tightened properly diamonds have a smaller diameter , in appearance at least.
Before you loop each strand around the fall for the fall hitch, pull the strand tightly, as tight as if you were plaiting it. Then after you've looped the first few, you can pull the remaining strands tightly because the first few won't let me undo too much. I still like to give them a slight pull before I loop the remaining ones ( after they have already been tightened ) to take up any slack that may have been caused.
Something else that came to mind is you may need to make the eye of the fall longer. Not so much that the eye comes out of the hitch of course but that may have been the problem.
riku1914 wrote:Something else that came to mind is you may need to make the eye of the fall longer. Not so much that the eye comes out of the hitch of course but that may have been the problem.
I bet that's it. The eye barely fit around the strands now that I think about it! Thanks.
I tend to make the eye of my falls about 1" long. If you wanted to put it down to some sort of equation, I'd say make it 2.5-3 times the diameter of your point. So if your point is 7mm make the eye at least 17-18mm long, but closer to an inch is more comfortable.
I have had falls sit on some of my older whips like that and it didn't cause a problem so I wouldn't worry about it too much, just try for something cleaner on your next whip
Fall shape, lengths and thickness are factors that all have an effect on the action of the whip and how it feels in your hand and how it cracks. As you are starting out, you may not yet have very much experience with a variety of falls and how they feel on a whip, but here is a starting point. You can play around with this as you see fit, but this should get you on your way.
A fall has to fit the whip for which it is being fitted, so it's not like there is a rule or law about this and personal tastes play a big role in it. But as a general rule, one wants the fall to continue the taper of the thong, so it makes sense that the fall have the same or slightly lower size as the thong at the tip. How you go about figuring this is to start thinking in terms of mass, so it's not enough to look at how wide or how thick the fall is, the math has to be there too. Now by saying mass I am over simplifying things since we are talking about two different types of leather (kangaroo for the thong and cow hide for the fall), they do not have the same mass, but we have to start somewhere and so a more correct term would be physical space. So if we assume your thong is round, and we should, of say 6mm wide, then your fall needs to be roughly the same. In the case of an American style bullwhip (as opposed to a lighter Australian style), we generally opt for a slightly heavier fall, so let's say our fall leather (perhaps whitehide), is 3-4mm thick, so for the fall to start off with a similar size as the thong it should be about 8mm wide (4+8=12/2=6) because the thong is: 6+6=12/2=6. But remember I said as big or a bit smaller (to continue with the taper...) so you could feasably make your fall about 9mm wide +/- and that would be your starting point.
Now the length is another point of debate and as long as the whip cracks, is up to personal preferences. I find under 30" to be getting a bit short for me, and my sweet spot is about 33".
So let's say you've got a piece of whitehide 4mm thick, you will see it is very dry and very hard, so you can't cut through it in one single go; if you try you will either break your blade, slice the leather crooked or get injured from the knife suddenly jumping out and cutting your hand. What you want to do is first score the leather with your blade in a shallow cut, then simply keep cutting in that score line until you're cut all the way through.
Now at about an inch or so from the base of the fall (the widest part), start cutting a 1" or so line in the middle of the fall; this will be you slit. I leave a good amount of leather between the end of the slit and the end of the fall because I like to stretch my falls with a fair amount of force and I don't want to tear through the fall because I cut the slit too close to the end. Once this is done, I place the slit in my work hook and start to pull on it gently and slowly increase the pressure until I am pulling on it and am not feeling any give in the leather anymore. I then use the roundness of the hook to sort of give the end of the slit a rounded finish on the inside of the slit. In leather that isn't so thick, and when you have a bit more space to work in, you can punch a hole with a leather punch at the start and end of a slit, this will prevent the slit from continuing and tearing through the leather.
Next using either a knife or a safety beveler, it's up to you, skive all four corners of your fall. Because fall leather is pretty tough I strongly recommend a fresh bit of blade for this job. Work you fall until you are happy with the taper but don't loose your mind over this; small imperfections won't prevent your whip from cracking as long as the taper is maintained. Use fluid strokes and you will get better results than short, nervous ones.
Apply a lot of plaiting soap, loop a long strand of leather around the fall and holding the tip tightly, go back and forth with the strand along the entire length of the fall. The heat from the friction will make the soap get into the leather and will make the fall nice and supple. It will also round out the skived corners and make the fall rounder and more aerodynamic.
I always use whitehide for my falls and I find that I generally get a few inches more from the stretching and rounding of the fall than I started out with, and by the end my fall is longer than I need, which is great news! Great news because this lets you re-size your fall and decide where you want it to start and end, so you can chose a new base a few inches down from the original base of the fall, same thing with the tip. I tend to have the tip as small and round as I possibly can without loosing too much strength. So you may have to re-cut the base and tip but that's no big deal. Cut a new slit if you have to, just like the first and stretch the end over the hook once more to get that rounded aspect inside. Leave a good tab at the base, about an inch; you will trim this once the fall is on the whip. If you trim it now it will not give you as nice a result as if you trim it once it's fitted on the whip. Trim the tip to a point and you can even roll the fall if you want to, it won't hurt it any and it will help with the overall roundness of it.
I've had falls that ended at 3mm and were only slightly bigger than the poly cracker I put on them. I believe in taking the time in these small details because it does make a difference in how the whip behaves in the end.
I seem to remember seeing Joe Strain plaiting a few inches PAST the point where he wanted to tie the fall on and tighten the strands before undoing his plaiting to where he wanted the fall to be tied on. The idea is of course that when plaiting, it is not the stitch you are making that gets tightened but the one two or three stitches above it, so by doing this he effectively assures himself his plaiting is very tight at the point of the fall hitch. I have never done this, but it's an interesting idea.
As Jeremy mentioned, you want to tie you fall hitch over a smaller part of the fall, so it tightens up as you pull it in place, but not at the very end of the fall or it may be too much of a difference. Another thing to watch out for it twisting of the fall as you pull it through the fall hitch. This is even more pertinent the rounder the fall is, so just go slow and keep an eye out for that.
My plaiting tip is 6.3mm, which I did not expect because I had it with 8 strands. My fall starts at around 7x5mm. Tapers to 5x5. Guess I could have tapered it more.
but that may have been the problem.