Club Obi Wan

Tying off 1st/2nd bellies? Where? How?

How would you go about tying off the first two belly plaits on a nylon whip? Do you take the first 2 belly plaits all the way to the end of the core, or would you tie it off before or beyond the length of the core?

I just see it causing a big lump at the end of the whip if I were to tie off everything at the same spot where I would attach the fall.

I don't know how helpful this will be because I've only made leather whips, but I'd imagine they are similar.

When you "tie off" a belly on a leather whip, it's a temporary thing to hold the plaiting together while you are working on the layer above it. Once you have the plaiting on the layer above the belly (this could be the overlay or another belly) braided to when you've tied off the belly below, you untie it and let the ends extend as filler. the plaiting above the belly holds everything below it in place...so inside the whip there aren't any knots.

As for lengths that probably varies whipmaker to whipmaker and would depend on the type of whip. I can't help you with lengths because if I remember right nylon whips don't have bolsters like leather whips do.

You might want to look into Steve Huntress's ebook on nylon whipmaking. He's at http://www.neawhips.com.

Louie
http://bullwhips.org

Hi fuzzjunk,
What louie said about tying off and using strands as fillers If I was to make a 12 ft 16 plait whip I would make my core about 6 ft, The first 8 plait belly out to about 8 ft, the second 12 plait belly to 10 ft then the overlay 16 plait to 12 ft. You can work other lengths for other whips from this. I'm sure some other whip makers may do this differently but it works really well for me to get a nice even taper all the way down the whip.
Hope this helps
Graeme

Great info guys, thanks for the help!

My spool of paracord just came in . I am going to start on it now, hopefully I can finish it tonight.

I plan on doing a 8ft Indy style bullwhip with an 8 plait and 12 plait bellies, and a 16 plait overlay. I am guessing I would go with an 4ft core and have the 1st belly go to 5.5ft then 2nd belly to 7ft and the overlay to the end.

Also what is the most correct/common tie off method for the overlay on Indy's bullwhip?

Thanks again for the help,

-Scott

I would definitely go with that method for the whip
If your talking about the point where the fall is hitched in then Indy's whip is finished in 6plait tied on like in the tutorial on whip basics

Graeme