Fade/colour change whip

[Brandon "Sparky" Lam]

Hey everyone! So I had an idea a few months ago for a whip that changed colour from the handle to the fall, and today I think I've managed to do just that.

I didn't take many pictures of the process, but to digress a little, I think this is the prettiest single colour handle I've ever done so far


The disadvantage of what I wanted to do was that I had to plait the belly and overlay at exactly the same time, so this is how it looked like most of the time -


But after a while I managed to get this happening!


And here are some pictures of the final product~



Should I pursue this to see if I can perfect this technique, or do you think it's not worth the effort? :P
I gave it a little try earlier on, and it was somewhat weird watching the loop change colour during the circus crack. I'll probably wax it in a few days, and see how it acts then~

[Ron May]

I think that is way cool.
Yes definitely continue developing it.
I would like to know how you actually did that.
That is unless you would like to protect that method as your own.

I have tried it using the strand lengths to determine the color change but it only increased the accent color up to half and half at the end.

Ron

[Brandon "Sparky" Lam]

Thanks Ron!
Mmm I'm gonna see if I can try get the pattern more consistent as it transitions...but that's realllllyyy difficult.

To be honest, this method is actually inspired from an old one. I remember finding a certain thread called the "Wurth Transition", which is what inspired me to do this one. Instead of pulling all the belly strands out at the transition, I pulled them out as I plaited the thong. This was somewhat difficult because you had to line up when you dropped in and pulled out strands, so as to not ruin the pattern, as well as having to deal with the strands all over the place (thank god I have two hemostats :P )
The planning of this actually took a while, essentially I planned the strands so that some of the overlay strands were at the length of the belly strands, and some of the belly strands were at the length of the overlay strands. But I ran into the problem of strand drop locations, which kinda made it slightly more difficult as I had to pull in some strands while dropping others! Nevertheless, the trick to this is that the belly is entirely red, while the overlay is entirely black

Hope that helps explain it! Feel free to ask questions if that didn't make sense (which it probably didn't) haha

[Ron May]

Thanks Brandon, that does clear it up some.
I like it.

Ron

[Jesse Bessette]

Brandon, that is awesome. I always wanted to do something similar to this, but my idea had been to splice in the strands on the overlay in a method similar to splicing in for the English Eye. Basically if I'm doing 6 footer, and I want the color change to begin at 3 feet, cut the black overlay strands short and drop a pair at 3 feet and splice in red at the same time.

[Brandon "Sparky" Lam]

Thanks Jesse! That is also another technique, I did it in this way because I didn't want to have so many potential failure points/lumps due to the splices. This colour change starts around halfway through the whip as well, though doing it by splicing you'd have much more control over where you can splice. I just think it'd make quite a few lumps :O

[Rachel McCollough]

I really like the fade, very cool feature! Nicely done, Brandon.

[Jesse Bessette]

That's what I'm wondering. How lumpy does a whip get when doing the English Eye? That's the kind of splice I'm talking about doing

[Brandon "Sparky" Lam]

Thank you Rachel!

Ohhh I thought you meant actually splicing strands together. When doing the english eye it's really hard to find lumps if done correctly. Though you'd have to worry about dropping strands AND adding strands as well, I worry that might cause problems with the integrity of the overlay? Iunno, just thinking about that method.

[Ron May]

Jesse, with my experience of doing just one, there is no lump when adding single strands, but with doubles there is some but a lot of those smooth out more when it's rolled. It also depends on what method of adding doubles you use.

The higher the strand count your adding to , the less noticeable the "doubled strand" lump.

Ron

[Jesse Bessette]

Ron, my thought is that you could just replace the strands you're dropping with the ones you are adding.

[Ron May]

Jesse, that's kind of the way I do it.
I just figure out "adds" plaiting from the tip to the handle like I do "drops" plaiting from the handle to the tip.

Ron

[Brandon "Sparky" Lam]

I might try that method next time, would require much less planning in terms of switching from belly to overlay haha There would be a LOT of drops and adds though :O

[Jorden Hoefling]

that looks rad man, killer job

[Brandon "Sparky" Lam]

Thanks Jorden!

[Ben Varsek]

I realy like the ringwork pattern on the handle of this whip and the changing colors of the overlay - well done Brandon !!!

I remeber that there has been a tutorial by Lauren Wickline in this forum in which she explains her method of how to change from one color to another in the overlay. If I remeber it right she transitioned from herringbone to ringwork on both - the overlay and the belly beneath the overlay - before weaving those two layers into each other (and thereby creating the change of the colors in the overlay).
I'm not sure if this tutorial still exists but to find your own way of doing things (just like you did on this whip build) is always better than "just following" a certain tutorial in my opinion !!!

All the best
Ben

[Brandon "Sparky" Lam]

Thank you Ben! It was such a surprise when the handle came out as it did :P

I don't believe I know of this explanation, but thank you for the information! That's definitely an interesting method...might experiment a bit more. Next time I'll try the splicing method, since I do it so much with the english eye

[Johnny Pell]

Brandon that looks killer. It's cool that your thinking outside of the box and it's even cooler that you are sharing. Thanks and keep up the good work.

[Brandon "Sparky" Lam]

Thank you Johnny! I definitely hope to perfect this technique~

[Bobbi Holyoak]

I love this! The colors look great. My vote is to keep it in your bag of tricks.