Whip Basics. The Forum

Hi everybody!

In the picture below you can see my first 20 plait bullwhip.
Ever since I had seen Robbys review of "the tank" by Keanu Shimaoka I have wanted a 20 plait bullwhip. I also had seen the 20 plait birdseye in another Youtube video and loved the looks of it.
About the construction: the whip has 3 plaited bellies(8,12,16), a BB core, a 9 inch handle and is 8,5 feet long. The fall is 3 feet long and I will have to shorten it a little bit.





Greetings Ben

Very nice Ben.
The plaiting looks spot on.
How does it perform?

Ron

It looks very cool. I like the thick handle and the cool plaiting in the handle.

Wow. I don't really know about whip braiding but this looks like you've got quite an eye for precision, and the ability to translate that into a braid. Very nice! I'd love to see that bad boy cracking!

Ben, as the proud owner of one of Keanu's Tanks, I congratulate you on this! Also, 8.5 feet is a very good length (in my opinion). Your plaiting looks straight as an arrow, and it sounds like you've got enough weight there, too. Please post a video when you can - but well done, sir!

@ Ron May:

Thank you Sir!
It performes nice and fluid compared to my other whips, but I am a bloody whipcracking beginner and I dont have the needed experience to call it "good or "bad"

@ Markus Nanderöd:

Thank you very much Sir!
The heelknot fells a little to big for my personal taste and I will make it slighly smaller the next time.

@ Jonathen Bullwinkel:

Thank you very much Sir!
I am planing to shoot some whipcracking footage soon.

@ Robert Gage:

Thank you very much Sir!
I am 100% sure that the quality of Mr. Shimaokas tank is lightyears away from the quality and performance of my whip: my wife and I were both amazed about the Youtube video of the tank-prototype of Mr. Shimaoka and how skillful and effordlessly he demostrated the performance of the tank-Wow!!!

Greetings to all of you

Ben

I forgot to mention the name of the person in that Youtube video I got the Idea for the 20 plait birdseye from. Its Axel Lackmann.

Greetings Ben

Impressive! Very neat and sharp!

I took extra note of the TH:s.
I know from personal experience only too well how unforgiving TH:s can be, but you seem to have nailed them!

@ Lasse Carenvall:

Thank you very much Sir!
I am far away from beeing good at tying THs: most of the time I am using the same THs (6 bight 7part with 2 passes and 6 bight 7 part with pinapple interweave) for my whips and therefore I know how big or small the knotfoundation needs to be for a certain "whip diameter" to work out for me.

Greetings Ben

Wow, you make a very good job Ben, very impressive.
The plaiting looks very clean and smooth and I like the birdseye pattern.

All the best
Mario

This is a very beautiful whip, Ben. I can only dream of tying a knot that nice, too!
Straight and I like the colors, I really like a heavy whip-
This is a beauty.

Well Done, Sir!

@ Mario Desgronte:

Thank you very much Sir!


@ Rachel McCollough:

Thank you very much Madam!

I am sure that it would take you less time than me tying THs like the ones on this whip:
I have spend a lot of time trying to improove my THs but I think it would have probably been better if I had spend more time trying to improove on my plaiting: my paliting turned out nice on this whip (compared to my other whips) but I have had some trouble on my recent work: recently I was trying the "flip and shake-method" for string drops and the results were terrible (I will post pictures of it).
You plaiting looks incredibly straight, tight and consistant-my colmpliments to your work Madam!!!

Thank you very much, Ben.
I too had difficulty with that method of dropping strands, it just didn't go very well for me!
Practice makes us better and we only learn more by trying new.

Ben, Rachel, what is the "flip and shake" method of dropping strands?

Ron

Ron, http://youtu.be/sLTUCNciu3s here's a video of that method.

@ Rachel McCollough:

You are absolutely right Madam!

@ Ron May:

The "flip and shake method" is beeing used in order to avoid a"double overlaps":

The picture below shows you an example for what I mean by "double overlap":



The way to avoid these "doubel overlaps" is to turn the whip around 180 degree from the original position, shake the strands, and rearange them as shown in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLTUCNciu3s

Greetings Ben.

Thanks, Ben and Philbert.

Ron

Ben, that is excellent plaiting. Very straight and true. Impressive.

Well done Ben- that is some impressive work there

@ Tyler Blake:

Thank you very much for your compliments Sir!!!