The first project was a 7 foot woody with a carapace to bridge the the gap between the handle and thong. The construction was a 3 layer one with a 8 plait belly, 12 plait belly, and 16 plait overlay. The weight in this one comes largely from the wood which is Lignum Vitae, and as such in handle heavy but it flows very nicely.
The third project (I scrapped the second one for now) is a 6 foot woody with a 10" handle, which was saved from the wood splitter and looks like Ash. This whip has a 8 plait Nylon belly over a shot loaded core with a 12 plait belly and 16 plait overlay both in Dacron. There is also a 4 to 8 plait round English Eye on the thong, and I am becoming quite partial to doing the overlay from tip to heel. The grapevine is in Goatskin and the knot in Kangaroo lace. The construction ended up a hair shy of 5/8" so I made a slimmer handle for this whip and as such the handle is directly glued to the thong. Despite the lead loading and wax bath, the whip remains quite light and speedy.
My impressions of Dacron are quite positive. I love the way the material plaits up to a stiff braid, but remains very flexible and fluid. The material is also rather slick compared to Nylon and as such the braid of the cord will expand more, making it easier to load a steel BB into 1/8" Dacron than the larger Nylon paracord, and this slickness also makes it easier on the hands. The slickness does have a downside in making added strands and dropped strands more prone to slippage, as well as making it more fiddly to plait with compared to similarly sized roo lace. My hat off to Tyler for managing complex pattern work given the size and slippery nature of the strands. Overall the only real negative aside from the slippery aspect, is the size of the strands in that it takes longer to plait as opposed to paracord, however I like the results of the finer plait and higher strand count that can be had at the point so I do not consider it an issue.