Club Obi Wan

Just wondering how long some of your guys falls are on your whips, I guess I'm doing a little pole to come up with an average length. Also if you have any new falls before using how long those are and where you purchased them from so I can tell the length that different whip makers are selling.

Just curious I guess

Keep Cracking

James

The fall on my Caicedo 8ft. is 3 feet long I think it was a little shorter when I got the whip back in April, but since it's white hide it has stretched a little. Gus also sent me a replacement fall which I haven't used yet but it measured 32 inches long.

Alright - I've got a redhide fall on my whip that's been there for several weeks, and I have a whitehide fall in my MkVII that's sitting there until I need it. Here's the specs.

The redhide fall, which has already had a piece or two snap off (taking my crackers with them), measures twenty-six inches in length. The whitehide fall, unused, measures twenty-seven.

Shane

I shoot for 28"

Personally I think there is specific no right or wrong length for a fall. The falls that I sell are longer, but I do it that way on purpose. That way the end user can shorten it to the desired length...it's very difficult to turn a 24 inch fall into a 32 inch, but much easier to turn a 32 inch into a 24 inch.

Also one thing I've learned from David Morgan that the overlay weight and thickness of the fall is important to how the fall interacts with the point of the whip.

For example a whitehide fall from Mike Murphy is a lot lighter than one from David Morgan and usually one will work better on than the other (depending on the whip).

All that said if you are selling a fall, it should (in my opinion) be the proper weight for the whips that you make. If the customer needs to send you diameters of the end of the whip and you are custom cutting the fall for them then your falls should be much more expensive!

xoxo

Louie
http://bullwhips.org

Well so far I've been putting on whitehide falls of around 30-32"

BUT

those have been pre-stretched when I round them. I usually start off with a fall around 29" and by the time it's been rounded, it will have stretched a few inches. But I try to not go overboard with the length as it tends to loose a lot of energy is it's too long. On the other hand, a short fall will not have the length to do good wraps...

I have bought falls in the past from both Mike Murphy and David Morgan, but nowadays I cut my own from Australian whitehide. I try to aim for something in between Morgan's and Murphy's; I find one is very thick and the other very slim, but the difference is not huge I mean it's less than 1mm. But in a fall, that's a lot.

I also try to taper them to the last few inches of the fall, so the taper is not just in the first 10-12 inches, but runs the whole way through. The shape of the taper is very important at that point; too much too soon and again you loose energy, too little too late and you expend energy before it gets to the cracker... Rounding them is also high up on my list, as is loading them up with conditioner.

Having said all this, I've only made bullwhips so far so maybe it's different when using a stockwhip... I don't know it's hard to explain, but you know when you've hit that sweet spot.
Franco