Whip Basics. The Forum

I started a new 8 foot whip yesterday for a friend of mine. She wants one to give her grandson for Christmas. I made one for her earlier this summer to give her husband for his birthday. This one is an 8 foot bullwhip, 12 inch handle, 3 belly, overlay in black.
I didn't think to take pictures of the assembled core or the first belly, but here's the completed 2nd belly bound with artificial sinew. The core has a light shot load and the handle was wrapped with hockey tape before it and the core were bound. The first belly was a 6 plait and extended about 2 foot from the heel and bound with AS. I practiced some on the second belly transitioning from a diamond plat to a herringbone and back and it came out pretty good but it's hard to tell because of the odd colors of the cord. I was trying to use up some short strands cut from earlier whips.

Sorry about the weird title, when I copied and pasted oneof the photos my cursor had jumped up to the title and I didn't notice it until I had alread submited it.

Your plaiting is looking very tight. Can't wait to see the rest.
Looking good already.

Sven

Mark, that will be a great Christmas present!

Looking good, Mark. I always enjoy seeing whip guts....err...build threads.

Looks very good so far, keep it up!

Thanks for the encouragement everyone. Didn't make a lot of progress on it yesterday, I kept redoing the same area. I know it's only a belly, but I couldn't get the cord to lay the way I wanted. Still trying to practice the transitions between different plaits.

Finally got the 3rd belly on, bound and rolled. 16 plait extends about 6 feet from the heel. I did a little playing around on the handle plaiting, trying to practice some more plait transitions, but it really gave me a lot of trouble. Bird's eye plait sounds simple, but for some reason I couldn't get it to lay smooth. Finally got a couple of sections to lay smooth and went back to the herringbone for the rest of the handle. The thong is straight herringbone plait all the way. I'm still trying to figure out the best way (for me, at least) to bind the bellies. I've done whips with the entire belly bound with just a close round wind, bellies with a more open cross pattern of one layer up and back and some of the same with 2 layers up and back. This one has an open weave except over the transition. the first and second bellies had a closed round wind the entire length of the belly. We'll see.

Nice job Mark.
That should do the trick.

Ron

Thanks, Ron.

That looks very tidy Mark. Nice job

That's very clean. I'm really curious as to how it performs compared to a complete closed loop binding.
Nice job.

Sven

Coming along nicely, Mark!

Mark, this is looking good!! ^_^

Looking good! It ought to do great.

Thanks every one, I'll try to post a video when I get it done. Pics, for sure.

You missed a spot!

All kidding aside, that looks very well done. Nice job.

Scott, rats, I thought I hid all those on the bottom!

Looking good Mark!

Thanks Jyri.

I got the handle overlay plaited today. I wanted to put a little variation into the handle plait, but I'm just not confident in plaiting transitions that I can't cove with a knot, yet, so in the end decided to just keep it simple and used a 20 plait U2O2 (what Ron Edwards calls a short herringbone) and am pretty happy with the way it looks. I have always been a little obsessive about things and knowing that I'm going to post it so that you guys can see it has made me even more picky about it. Although,
looking at it in the photo I see a little drift off to the right just before the transition (where it will be covered with a knot!)