Club Obi Wan

What are you to do if you can't get that last little hitch to go through the eye of the new fall? I've got it in, and it's all nice and tight through the other hitches, but either the part of the fall is too thick to go in tight enough to hold that last hitch strand (am I totally botching the terms, or what? ), or I don't know what's going on. Also, the strand is a little short, so if I do push it through the eye of the fall, it'll pop out once in a while after a few cracks.

I had a little piece of polypropelene tied to the fall hitch so that the one strand wouldn't come undone, but the poly came off after a few fast figure-8s. My dad suggested gluing ( ) the hitch on so it never comes lose, but I think that sounds like a really bad idea, or I'm sure whipmakers would just do it when they made the darn things.

So... I kind of feel like a dufus. What's the best way to go about rectifying this, so that the fall hitch doesn't come undone in a few months?

Shane

Go this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhjFBBz2_T4&feature=user and 4 minutes and 13 seconds in you will find the solution to your problem.
Kind Regards
Bernie

Hmm... well I've already got the fall in as far as it will go, and it's probably not going to come back out for me to put that last strand under the others (is that what you're doing? It's kind of blurry).

Shane

That's what I'm doing Shane. You should still be able to get that last strand under the others by making a path with a fid or a small screwdriver,even a nail will do the job.

Aha! I managed to get it to work - even though the side the strand stuck out on was already pretty crowded (the smooth, wide open side of the hitch was not the side where that strand stuck out). I don't know if that's normal or what, but in any case, it worked!

Thanks Bernie!

Cheers,
Shane

The way Bernie does it works just fine Shane, but Paul Stenhouse ties them a bit differently on his whips. He lays that last strand back down over the other 6 knots and tucks it to the eye slit in the fall. Then when he pulls the fall up into place, the fall locks that last strand in place.

Yeah, I noticed that when I went to try what Bernie suggested. At first I thought I wasn't going to be able to do it, because I wasn't about to loosen 6 knots and stick the strand into one of 'em. But what I managed to do was loosen the hitch just a little bit, and stick the strand into it *next* to the knots.

I couldn't lock the strand down under the fall because it just kept popping out, otherwise.

Shane

Shane,

I'm in SoCal right now for the renaissance fair in Irwindale, and I'm staying in Duarte. If you want to get together sometime to crack whips, I can have a look at your whip and probably get the hitches straightened out.

Also, for any of the COW members in SoCal who were thinking of coming to the fair, I have 20 free tickets that I'm supposed to give out. The tickets are only good for the next three weekends, so if I can meet any of you in person in the next three weeks, I can hook you up with some tickets.

-Adam