Silverado

[Mark Elliott]

Here’s an 8 ft. nylon bullwhip in black and silver. It has 2 plaited bellies over a shot loaded core, 16 plait overlay with several pattern changes on the thong itself to add a little texture to the whip. It has an Engish eye fall hitch, a 30-inch weighted fall, and a Fast Flight cracker. the handle is 9 inches and has a 1/4-inch steel rod as a core. the heel knot has a leather and lead foundation and is covered with a 7 part x 6 bight tripled Turk’s head knot. the transition knot is a Double Gaucho Knot of Three Passes as found in Bruce Grant’s Encyclopedia of Rawhide and Leather Braiding, plate 168. I added a short decorative section that extends from the transition about a foot down the thong of silver nylon done with a method described in Grant’s Encyclopedia as a Back Braid of Six Thongs, plate 41, except I did it with 12 thongs resulting in a 24-plait gaucho braided decorative covering.





Ron, I don't know how it cracks. I tried but it was son windy that it blew right back into my face! If I turned around it blew it into the back of my head.!

[Mark Elliott]

Oh, I meant to put these into the post as well.

[Brandon "Sparky" Lam]

Mark, I love it! That knot overlay method is so obviously, but I never even thought of doing that! :O Well done, it looks amazing~

[Mark Elliott]

Thank you, Sparky. Honestly, I only did it that way because I couldn't figure out how to do a square start into a gaucho braid. I can do one into a diamond plait and one into a short herringbone (O2U2) plait, but couldn't get a clue on a gaucho square start.

[Brandon "Sparky" Lam]

Ahh makes sense! I'm sure with a little bit more time you could do it

[Mark Elliott]

Actually, this method may take a bit longer, but it's not as stressful as straight plaiting a gaucho plait. for one thing, you don't have that rotating run list, and for another, if you want to stop, just stop and when you come back it's still O2 U2, so you don't have to worry about losing your place.

[Rachel McCollough]

That is a beautiful whip. It looks like it will flow like water!

[Mark Elliott]

Another cool thing about this is that, if you notice in the last paragraph if you start the last 3 (or in my case last 6) strands going over you get a herringbone pattern (which is what it shows in the diagrams) and if you start them going under first you get the gaucho pattern (which is what I wanted.)

[Mark Elliott]

Thank you Rachel. I did not get a chance to try it out yet, because of this awful wind here.

[Robert Gage]

Mark, that looks super. It immediately made me think of tyler's Exo-Whips, of course - but it's done in your own distinctive way.

[Jyri Haveri]

That is beatiful Mark! Gaucho seems to bee in these days
Thanks for sharing that! I have to try that later!

[Ron May]

This looks awesome Mark.
Very impressive and nicely done.
I look forward to hearing how it cracks when you get the weather to do it.

Ron

[Mark Elliott]

Thanks, Robert, Jyri, and Ron.

Yes Robert, Tyler has been a huge influence. Thus is also used in braiding nose buttons on Bosals and decorative buttons on Romal reins.

Jeri, honestly this was pretty easy to do. Should be a snap for you.

[Ron May]

Mark, it sure looks complicated to me.

Ron

[Jyri Haveri]

Last whip i made i tryed to go to u2o2, short herringbone i think, but it ended up to be gaucho

[Wolfgang Timm]

Looks great, as always - elegance by simplicity
So, the silver section is „just“ decoration or does it also provide more stability in the transition area?

[Scott A. Cary]

Wolfgang, I'm not sure that you could have one without the other.

Mark, this looks fantastic!

[Mark Elliott]

Wolfgang, basically it's a 3-belly whip. The first belly I'd just on the outside of the thong.

[Sven van Leeuwen]

Wow, very nice work. I really like the overlay in grey/silver.

Sven

[Mark Elliott]

Thanks Scott and Sven.