Whip making: leather vs. nylon

[Band Director Jones]

I don't post or look in this section very often so please forgive my ignorance.

Is there any difference in the construction techniques between leather and nylon? I would like to attempt to make my own whip (just for kicks and to see if I could do it), but don't want to spend a whole bunch of money if it is going to turn out looking like a piece of junk. I figure a nylon whip would be cheaper as far as materials go and if I mess it up there would not be a large investment lost. But, I’m wondering if you follow the same processes to make a leather whip as you do a nylon? Also, which book (I know there are several out there) is the best (in other words easiest to follow and understand) for the novice/beginner whip maker. Any advice will be most appreciated.

Thank you,

Brian

[Sergei]

Although nylon is much cheaper in cost, there are several considerations. The main issues are you need to create some weight to the nylon whip by loading it with a shot bag inside. The other issue with nylon is that there is no taper in the lace. The advantage of using leather hide is that you need to cut the laces in a tapered fashion. This overall leads to a nicely tapered thong, which produces more of an efficient transfer of kinetic energy. What I am saying is that the task of braiding a whip with non-tapered laces, such as the nylon cord, is much more problematic.

However saying that, it would be good practice to start braiding with nylon to get an overall feel of braiding.

The best books in my opinion:
Whips and Whip Making - David Morgan
http://www.indygear.com/forum/viewtopic ... hip+making


Braiding Fine Leather - David Morgan
http://www.indygear.com/forum/viewtopic ... whip+books


How to Make Whips - Ron Edwards


For a slight review of all of these check out this thread:
http://www.indygear.com/forum/viewtopic ... on+edwards

Look at the comments from "The Edge".

Also Bernie has a good tutorial on his website:
http://www.em-brand-whips.com/bulltutorial.htm

All these are excellent resources, however they do all fall short of explaining to someone just starting out. You almost need first hand instruction, because there are nuances that sometimes the writers in the above books overlook - because they take it for granted.

Hope this helps.
-Sergei

[English Whip Maker]

Hi

Just to add a little on to Sergei's post....

Braiding Fine Leather won't tell you how to make whips at all, but it will give you an excellent intruduction to braiding with different numbers of strands. It gives complete instructions for a number of projects of increasing complexity and, although I've never tried them in nylon, I reckon they should be just as do-able in that medium as with leather.

It might be worth your while getting this book and working your way through some of those projects before making a whip. If you decide to go for leather, you'll gain practice in preparing the leather (it doesn't matter how well you can braid, if your preparation is poor the result will be unsatisfactory) and, with either material, you'll gain experience that will put you in good stead when you start your first whip.

Just my two pennies worth.

Dave
www.whipstore.com

[Major Mike]

The CowWhip site (www.dallasdogsled.com/Whips/CowWhip.htm) has a pretty nice tutorial on how to make a nylon Florida Cow Whip. It talks about some of the different techniques used in making the nylon whips. I tried making one after making a number of leather ones and found out the following things.

The core needs to be weighted with ball chain or lead shot to have enough weight to get the whip to move.

In a leather whip, the bolsters are made out of leather which can be trimmed to help determine the taper. The few nylon whips I saw used duct tape for a bolster, which gave a lot less control in the shape.

At each stage in the leather whip, you can roll it to even it out. The irregularities in the leather will mush together to even out for a nice finish. The nylon/duct tape didn't produce the same even results for me.

The only way to taper the nylon strands is to remove the inner strings, which is a pain in the neck unless you're taking all of them out. The leather is much easier to taper with the initial cut, and then can be skived or trimmed if needed. So the taper has to come from dropping strands along the way.

When dropping strands into the core, on a leather whip you can thin them out or remove part of the core to compensate for the extra thickness of adding a strand. It can be done with nylon, but its a much messier process.

The nylon strands are a lot harder on your hands. Its dry and has a roughness to it, as opposed to the leather that you soap up to be slippery and smooth. Wear gloves or anticipate blisters.

Thats my two cents. If you can get a nice tapered core, the nylon strands are very even and you can do a nice job plaitting the overlay. The leather takes a lot more practice to get nice even strands for plaiting. But the leather is easier to taper. There are a lot of really nice nylon whips out there. Give it a try.

[Indiana Texas-girl]

The CowWhip site (www.dallasdogsled.com/Whips/CowWhip.htm) has a pretty nice tutorial on how to make a nylon Florida Cow Whip.

I know that guy. I have 2 of his whips. Mark is a local member of the DFW Whip Enthusiasts. Makes a great Nylon whip!