After my recent month-long hiatus from the forum and pretty much everything else to be honest, I got to work on the swap whip. It's a 6.5ft Bullwhip, twisted taper core, 10.5" handle, 8 and 12-plait bellies and a 16-plait overlay in black and coyote brown.
All started well...
The handle:
Note scoring on shaft to aid grip on the cords of the 'handle belly into twisted taper core':
Short transition binding over the tip of the handle and first section of core. This is then plaited over with the first 8-plait belly:
First belly binding:
Second belly binding (and this is where it all starts to go wrong
):
So, there I am, thinking, "Yup, that's enough binding - it's really stiff at the transition, the progression of the curve is good, let's start the overlay."
Now, I'm definitely no expert whipmaker but I have made a couple of half-decent ones and I genuinely thought I'd done a good second belly binding. But I forgot MY OWN RULE ON BINDING! "If you think you've done enough binding, do a bit more because you probably haven't"
Last night I finished the overlay. I'm sure a couple of you will sympathise with what I ended up with...
As it happens the binding around the actual transition is very stiff and I'm more than happy with it. It's the 'wet noodleyness' of the thong from about 2" after the transition that made my heart sink.
Although the rest of the thong is fine, tight plaiting, good seam and a nice six-point tip, I cannot in all conscience let this go out in this condition so I will have to take the overlay right back and add further binding.
With deadline approaching very fast, it's going to go right to the wire on this one! Still, focusses the mind if nothing else. :O
