Pretty Precarious Popper Problems

IndianaGuybrush · Post by **IndianaGuybrush** » Wed Apr 21, 2004 6:35 pm

Man, I am starting to get seriously annoyed here.

This is the 4th time in as many days that I have had to replace my poppers.

First off was Gettysburg. We were our practising, on grass, and my popper just exploded. I don't know how better to day it. I cracked the whip and noticed a bunch of fuzzy black strands drifting down to meet me, and when I looked at the end of my popper about an inch was missing off the end and it had come unravelled. Well I replaced the popper AND the fall on that one, figuring that I might as well change the fall because it was looking a little frazzled anyway. Alright.

Tuesday my new 8' JS came in and I couldn't wait to break it in, so I decided to crack it out front. It came with a popper and a fall and both were in good shape. After about 20 minutes of cracking it happened again, the popper just exploded. Out of frustration I simply retied the knot in the popper, thinking that even though it was unravelled, I could get another 10-15 minutes out of it... WRONG. On the VERY next crack I somehow managed to saw the end of the fall off, right underneath the knot attatching the popper to the fall. I took that as a sign from a greater power that it was time for me to go inside and stop cracking.

Today was an absolutely gorgeous day in Ithaca, and, since we don't get too many of those, I decided to celebrate by going down to the park and breaking in my JS some more, as well as practising with my Stenhouse. After about 20 minutes of cracking the JS I had another case of spontaneous popper combustion. Determined not to get upset, I put the JS away and picked up my ten footer. Literallly 15 cracks later I managed to saw the edge off the fall on my Stenhouse, again, right under the knot connecting the popper. I figured that the popper, wherever it was, was still intact, and set out to find it, but for all I know the force of the crack sent it into orbit, because I looked for 10 minutes and I still couldn't find it. At this point I am out of poppers and I have 1 more replacement fall. I ordered a spool of bonded nylon but I won't get it for a week or so, and more importantly, I don't even know if it will matter when I do.

I am obviously doing something wrong for this to be happening, but I can't for the life of me think what it is. I don't crack on cement, or in rocky areas. I don't bring the whip down into the ground after most of my cracks, I prefer to follow through by swinging over my head. I am nearly positive that I'm not swinging or cracking any harder than I have been doing for the past month, but it seems that a disproportionate amount of maintenance has been needed recently. This is really starting to get to me so anyone with any advice, anecdotes, or suggestions please speak up. I'd hate to have whipping become a negative experience because of something like this.

The_Edge · Post by **The_Edge** » Wed Apr 21, 2004 8:03 pm

How often do you condition your fall with leather dressing? A dry fall often times does not have the right weight or flexibility needed for the transfer of energy generated during a whip crack. This will cause you to use more effort to get the whip to crack. With more effort comes more power and the dry fall will quickly weaken and fail from lack of flexing. The extra power can also put more stress on your popper causing it to break.

Try dressing your fall with Pecards or another conditioner after every or every other practice. Your fall should have a kind of rubbery constitency about it all the time. It has to perform some very tight and rapid hair pin turns so keep it flexible with dressing.

You may also want to try making poppers out of Nyltex thread. It's a waxed thread that you can get at most shoe repair shops. Makes for super strong poppers. I used to use Nyltex all the time before switching to the less expensive bonded nylon. I still use it on occasion though. You'll break your fall off before you disintigrate a Nyltex popper.

IndianaGuybrush · Post by **IndianaGuybrush** » Wed Apr 21, 2004 9:22 pm

I condition the falls with pecards gel after every practice session. I'm not really sure what it is that's happening, but I'll keep on crackin until I either figure it out, it stops, or I get sick of it. Thanks for the advice Edge, maybe I'll check Nyltex out.

Richie · Post by **Richie** » Thu Apr 22, 2004 11:55 am

It can be that at the first time that you loose the cracker the end of the fall was riped off. If so, your fall-end will have a taper now at the end. You can do what you want, the loop of the the cracker will slip over the tapering end every time again.
The right preparation is very simple, you need just a sharp knife and a sure hand. If anybody can help me how I can bring a drawing in this thread (I have no own homepage)?

Mike Murphy show it very good in his video "maintenance & repair" how to mastering crackerknots, cutting a right fall-end and a lot of repair skills etc.

Tennessee R · Post by **Tennessee R** » Sun Apr 25, 2004 1:28 am

That's wierd.
I was thinking maybe wind (That usually makes knots in my fall),
but for it to explode, I don't know.

IndianaGuybrush · Post by **IndianaGuybrush** » Sun Apr 25, 2004 1:26 pm

I went out again yesterday and this time I payed attention to every single crack I made, and checked the popper after each crack. I lost 2 poppers, both times because the last 1/2" of the fall got sawed off. it seems to be happening exclusively on the overhead/horizontal crack, and I think it may be happeneing because the popper is wrapping around the whip at some point, and when the energy gets to the end of the whip and the popper is wrapped around it it pulls the fall off. That's the only thing I can figure really. I've started making my own poppers and so far none of them have exploded, so I'm not really worried about that now. But falls are relatively expensive and I don't think I wan't to go through them at a fast rate, as it will make whipping a pain in the behind. Anyway, I'll keep looking.

Indiana Texas-girl · Post by **Indiana Texas-girl** » Sun Apr 25, 2004 7:36 pm

I just thought of something...could it be the way the poppers are tied onto the fall or maybe even the fall itself? Where do you get your falls from?

IndianaGuybrush · Post by **IndianaGuybrush** » Mon Apr 26, 2004 2:28 am

ITG, that occured to me too, but I've mixed those variables up with little change in results.

The fall I have on my 10 footer, along with the spares I have, come from Paul Stenhouse, and I never really had a problem with them until recently (recently being when I started regulary cracking the horizontal crack).

I have tried 2 different knots to affix the popper to the fall. The half-hitch, in which the fall is laced through the end of the popper and the popper ties an additional half-hitch around the end of the fall, and I have tried the figure eight knot that was mentioned in the other thread, the knot in which the actual fall hels tie part of the knot and you end up with a little leather knot with a popper running through it where the popper and fall join.

Neither knot seems to make much of a difference, although I didn't even try to switch the knots until I started having this problem. At that point I swtiched them but it didn't alleviate the problem at all.

After more practice I think I know what it may be... my form

. I've noticed that when doing the horizontal crack, if you make the cracking motion in a plane other than the one the whip is traveling in it tends to get tangled on itself. I think that I might be either dropping my arm or bringing it up, changing the plane on the cracking motion, which makes the popper hit the whip at some point, in the problem cases on the fall. Bad for the fall, bad for the popper.

Anyway, that's the current theory. More study will shed some light on the problem. Until then I've been making my own poppers and now I make sure I bring a handful of extras when I go to the park to practice, so I don't have to cut my sessions short when I lose a popper or two.

Indiana Texas-girl · Post by **Indiana Texas-girl** » Mon Apr 26, 2004 7:43 am

When you go to crack it, are you reversing the direction at the 11:00-ish position or the 2:00ish position? When you do crack are you perhaps coming into a vertical plane to crack? (I did this when I first started and I see a lot of people first learning this crack do that...they start off in the horizontal plane and then go down into a vertical plane to crack it.)