Arizona whips

[Matt Henderson]

The whip looks fantastic, Craig! I love the colours and the concho really works well with it. You look like you've got a nice taper going too.

[Robby Amper]

That concho is fantastic, Craig!

Let me tell you this... Ask yourself, why you try to make your whips lighter? It's obvious that you're into heavy, beefy whips. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I love a heavy and beefy whip! When you hold a heavy whip, you can feel every single second when it's in the air. Don't hold back, Craig. I think that you have found your thing. Now go for it!

Robby

[Robert Gage]

Craig, I'm another big fan of beefy, heavy whips - for exactly the reason Robby gives. If a whip is too light, I can't seem to feel what it's doing in flight. Above a certain weight, I can. It's as if my nerves extend right down the thong. I know it sounds absurd, but I love feeling a whip roll out like an extension of my hand and arm.

[Matt Henderson]

I understand what you mean Robert, although I'm finding I prefer lighter whips for exactly that reason. Perhaps it's due to my physique, being 5'11" and only 9 stone, but I feel I have to wrestle with a heavy whip sometimes where I don't with a lighter one, and as a result I can 'feel' the whip more easily because my mind isn't concentrating on controlling it so much.

[Rachel McCollough]

Fire and Ice yes sir! Craig keep it going and keep improving on every whip. That's it!

[Morten Aalykke Pedersen]

Ron - thank you.

Also, after mulling it over for the last two weeks I've decided to give up on making my whips lighter. The lack of adequate stiffness on Roger's whip convinced me that I need to just bind the ever living bejesus out of my whips and let them be thick.

Hi Craig

When i bind my whips with the sinew i can tighten it to the point where the bound area is not thicker than the area not bound and get plenty of stiffness. Guess i am trying to say that in my humble opinion you dont need binding to the point where it gets bulky.

[Craig Frank]

Thank you, Johnny and Matt. Sorry for the late reply. Once again I managed to miss an updated post. Sorry for the delay.

Robby - thank you for the advice. I just need to stick with good old Thunderstrike. That's my thing from now on.

Thank you, Robert. I hope you get to try out Sir Roger's whip.

Morten - your whip is definitely stiff and light. It still has a very stiff transition and is even still stiff right before the fall. It makes it a very different whip to crack. Perfect, but different. Your whips are rapiers; mine are claymores.

[Craig Frank]

Oops! One of the pitfalls of using my phone. I don't see profile pictures. For some reason in my muddled head I thought that last post was from Pokkis, even though I typed Morten's name. Sorry to both of you.

[Craig Frank]

After a six month hiatus, I'm finally starting on making whips again. I'm going to make one for myself to try some new techniques, then I have to make the one for the raffle, then I have to make one for my daughter's teacher.

Trying a new core, similar to what I tried with Frankenwhip. After I changed the cracker on Frankenwhip, it actually cracked just fine. For this one, I'm going to go from the steel rod handle straight to plastic coated wire rope. This time I'm going to epoxy the two together, then cover the joint with a one inch crimped copper pipe. I couldn't find my epoxy, so I tried gorilla glue, which failed miserably. So I need to go buy some epoxy.

[Craig Frank]

[Ron May]

Craig, I found Gorilla Glue too brittle to use anywhere but the end of the heel for securing a concho / medallion.
It's going to be interesting to see how this one turns out.

Ron

[Craig Frank]

Thanks, Ron. My wife bought me some epoxy, so is setting now. Hopefully I can get the core done before the weekend so I can work on it during the long weekend. I don't know if I'm going to add some balls after the wire rope or not.

[Ben Varsek]

Mr. Frank, the way you've attached the steel cable to the handle looks very good and very solid!
I'm also using epoxy glue to attach my cores to the handles (on top of other attachment methods) and it never failed me.

All the best
Ben

[Rachel McCollough]

Epoxy yes!!! Lookin good, Craig!

[Tyler Blake]

I had the same experience with gorilla glue vs. Epoxy. Can't waittosee it Craig!

[Craig Frank]

Thanks, everyone.

Finally have some free time. The epoxy is solid. I tried as hard as I could to pull it free. No budge.



The hardest part is getting the rope over the braided wire. The rope I'm using us a very open weave and the smallest burr on the wire catches on the inside of the rope. I tried taping it, filing it, and coating it with plastic dip. It finally came down to recutting the tip with an angle grinder and then using a sander tip on a dremel and then just working the rope a lot.



I used a lot of tape to try to even out the taper and then did a flat sinew wrap followed by a cross pattern.





Then I taped it again and did the first belly. No more trying to be thin.

[Robert Gage]

Craig, that certainly looks solid!

[Robby Amper]

There's no need to be thin. I like your style of heavy whips. They roll out nice and slow - and they are straight to the point when I crack targets. Just do your thing, Craig. I like it!

Robby

[Matt Henderson]

Another beast in the making . Great job so far Craig

[Ron May]

Great progress Craig.
A BBW is good for slow crackin'.

Ron