first 20 plait bullwhip

[Ben Varsek]

Hi everybody!

In the picture below you can see my first 20 plait bullwhip.
Ever since I had seen Robbys review of "the tank" by Keanu Shimaoka I have wanted a 20 plait bullwhip. I also had seen the 20 plait birdseye in another Youtube video and loved the looks of it.
About the construction: the whip has 3 plaited bellies(8,12,16), a BB core, a 9 inch handle and is 8,5 feet long. The fall is 3 feet long and I will have to shorten it a little bit.





Greetings Ben

[Ron May]

Very nice Ben.
The plaiting looks spot on.
How does it perform?

Ron

[Guest]

It looks very cool. I like the thick handle and the cool plaiting in the handle.

[Jonathen Bullwinkel]

Wow. I don't really know about whip braiding but this looks like you've got quite an eye for precision, and the ability to translate that into a braid. Very nice! I'd love to see that bad boy cracking!

[Robert Gage]

Ben, as the proud owner of one of Keanu's Tanks, I congratulate you on this! Also, 8.5 feet is a very good length (in my opinion). Your plaiting looks straight as an arrow, and it sounds like you've got enough weight there, too. Please post a video when you can - but well done, sir!

[Ben Varsek]

@ Ron May:

Thank you Sir!
It performes nice and fluid compared to my other whips, but I am a bloody whipcracking beginner and I dont have the needed experience to call it "good or "bad"

@ Markus Nanderöd:

Thank you very much Sir!
The heelknot fells a little to big for my personal taste and I will make it slighly smaller the next time.

@ Jonathen Bullwinkel:

Thank you very much Sir!
I am planing to shoot some whipcracking footage soon.

@ Robert Gage:

Thank you very much Sir!
I am 100% sure that the quality of Mr. Shimaokas tank is lightyears away from the quality and performance of my whip: my wife and I were both amazed about the Youtube video of the tank-prototype of Mr. Shimaoka and how skillful and effordlessly he demostrated the performance of the tank-Wow!!!

Greetings to all of you

Ben

[Ben Varsek]

I forgot to mention the name of the person in that Youtube video I got the Idea for the 20 plait birdseye from. Its Axel Lackmann.

Greetings Ben

[Lasse Carenvall]

Impressive! Very neat and sharp!

I took extra note of the TH:s.
I know from personal experience only too well how unforgiving TH:s can be, but you seem to have nailed them!

[Ben Varsek]

@ Lasse Carenvall:

Thank you very much Sir!
I am far away from beeing good at tying THs: most of the time I am using the same THs (6 bight 7part with 2 passes and 6 bight 7 part with pinapple interweave) for my whips and therefore I know how big or small the knotfoundation needs to be for a certain "whip diameter" to work out for me.

Greetings Ben

[Mario Desgronte]

Wow, you make a very good job Ben, very impressive.
The plaiting looks very clean and smooth and I like the birdseye pattern.

All the best
Mario

[Rachel McCollough]

This is a very beautiful whip, Ben. I can only dream of tying a knot that nice, too!
Straight and I like the colors, I really like a heavy whip-
This is a beauty.

Well Done, Sir!

[Ben Varsek]

@ Mario Desgronte:

Thank you very much Sir!


@ Rachel McCollough:

Thank you very much Madam!

I am sure that it would take you less time than me tying THs like the ones on this whip:
I have spend a lot of time trying to improove my THs but I think it would have probably been better if I had spend more time trying to improove on my plaiting: my paliting turned out nice on this whip (compared to my other whips) but I have had some trouble on my recent work: recently I was trying the "flip and shake-method" for string drops and the results were terrible (I will post pictures of it).
You plaiting looks incredibly straight, tight and consistant-my colmpliments to your work Madam!!!

[Rachel McCollough]

Thank you very much, Ben.
I too had difficulty with that method of dropping strands, it just didn't go very well for me!
Practice makes us better and we only learn more by trying new.

[Ron May]

Ben, Rachel, what is the "flip and shake" method of dropping strands?

Ron

[Philbert Lim]

Ron, http://youtu.be/sLTUCNciu3s here's a video of that method.

[Ben Varsek]

@ Rachel McCollough:

You are absolutely right Madam!

@ Ron May:

The "flip and shake method" is beeing used in order to avoid a"double overlaps":

The picture below shows you an example for what I mean by "double overlap":



The way to avoid these "doubel overlaps" is to turn the whip around 180 degree from the original position, shake the strands, and rearange them as shown in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLTUCNciu3s

Greetings Ben.

[Ron May]

Thanks, Ben and Philbert.

Ron

[Sir Roger Tuson]

Ben, that is excellent plaiting. Very straight and true. Impressive.

[Tyler Blake]

Well done Ben- that is some impressive work there

[Ben Varsek]

@ Tyler Blake:

Thank you very much for your compliments Sir!!!