Double Stockwhip Project

[Brandon "Sparky" Lam]

Hey everyone!

So I recently tried out double stockwhips, which was probably not a good idea if I've never made a good stockwhip before :P
Either way, I wanted it to be faster, so the thong has an 8 plait belly and a 12 plait overlay.

[img=1]http://imgur.com/EL3nioO.jpg[/img]

The handle is made of a 6mm thick steel rod, and I tried to taper it a little bit, but next time I'll probably taper it with a crown/square knot. I decided to have double keepers on both the thong and the handle, but as I found out later, this is extremely tight.

[img=2]http://imgur.com/JNHl02h[/img]

Here I've done the overlay, and you can see what I've tried to do with the fancy patterns :P Does anyone know how to do a straight checkerboard because after like 5 whips I STILL cannot get it perfectly straight and it annoys me

[img=3]http://imgur.com/BNJ4dyK[/img]

And here it is done! I spent a huge amount of time trying to make the thong straight too haha I'll probably wax it tomorrow after I wake up, but I found that the thong itself is extremely light compared to the handle, is this supposed to happen?

Any criticism/advice is welcomed, I'd love to learn as much as possible! Thank you everyone!

[Brandon "Sparky" Lam]

Sorry I think these are the two missing images!

[img=2]http://imgur.com/JNHl02h.jpg[/img]

[Brandon "Sparky" Lam]

Woooowwww I really am not at my best. Can you edit previous posts?

[img=3]http://imgur.com/BNJ4dyK.jpg[/img]

[Ron May]

Brandon, those look really nice for your first attempt at stock whips.

Ron

[James Holly]

Brandon these look really nice for your first attempt, I will be very happy if my first stockwhip looks half as good! Did you bind the belly and/or shot load the core? I haven't had any experience with stockwhips but am itching to make one just to see if I like it!

[Brandon "Sparky" Lam]

Thank you Ron and James!

James I was suggested to not shot load it at all, so I used 3 strands of paracord as my core. In terms of binding, Jeff told me he didn't, so I didn't myself, but he uses leather which is stiffer, so I probably should have binded it. Currently, it's quite floppy (though I'm not sure how stockwhips are supposed to act exactly, since the handle gives so much leverage).

[James Holly]

Hmm that's interesting then, I hope some of the stock whip masters could enlighten us both then. I was looking at a video on Youtube earlier of someone with a pair of gorgeous Mike Murphy roo-hide stockwhips in his signature skinny style and was wondering about using only 1 belly for a paracord version, and you appear to have done exactly that! How long are these by the way?

[Brandon "Sparky" Lam]

I gotta be honest, I didn't put as much research into stockwhips as I have bullwhips, and so my knowledge of the thong flexibility is lacking (though I have searched, there's like nothing about it out there for some reason D: ).

The thongs are about 4.5 ft, and the handles are approximately 20 inches long!

[James Holly]

I've found it hard to find as much information about paracord stock whips, I suppose the rise of bull whip or snake whip tutorials online has pushed the stock whip to one side.

I wish I had the time, materials and tools to try and follow some of the leather stock whip tutorials which are out there!

I suppose the beauty of a stock whip is also that if you develop a nicer handle idea or a nicer thong, you can mix and match them to a certain extent? Or do the keepers lock up very tight after a few cracks?

[Brandon "Sparky" Lam]

Yeah, I kinda wish there was more info on stockwhips as I've seen that double whip routines are best with them!

I'd love to play with leather, but as you said, I also don't really have the materials and tools for them

On the ones I've made, the keepers are very tight anyway, so you could, just with difficulty (even before you've even cracked it) haha
So I'm pretty sure you can mix and match even after cracking!

[James Holly]

I wonder if it is worth exploring leather keepers on a paracord whip? What do you think?

[Brandon "Sparky" Lam]

Well I think it wouldn't be good if you were waxing the whip, leather tends to be brittle when waxed I think?
Lots of whipmakers use nylon webbing, which isn't too hard to find

[James Holly]

Ah that is a good point, at the moment I don't have the facility to wax my whips, so I hadn't considered that! Webbing sounds like quite a simple solution, I'm just worried if I tried to braid the keepers they may end up too big or too small and would mean redoing a lot of the work. Where simply cutting and test fitting a leather or nylon keeper might be more forgiving time wise?

Especially with so little knowledge of stock whips, I'm sensing if I try them, it may be a lot of trial and (plenty of...) error!

[Brandon "Sparky" Lam]

Oh trust me I took frigging AGES to work out my plaited keepers (especially since they were double keepers).
You have to work out the exact pattern you want with your whip, and back calculated where each drop should occur and it's just all over the place. If you do plait keepers, check all sides before plaiting the whip, cause quite often the strand drops will be on the wrong sides of the whips :P
But all in all it was a very educational experiment for me, and if these whips work well I might consider making more!

[Jeff Roseborough]

Brandon, pretty good for a first attempt. The thongs have a good taper to them. You mentioned using a 6mm steel rod for the handles. That is going to be too heavy. Try and find a fiberglass rod instead. It will be much lighter and still be strong.

[Brandon "Sparky" Lam]

Thanks Jeff! Would a 6mm carbon fibre rod work as well? I did notice that my handles are much heavier than the thongs, to the point where the whip slides off when hanging the whip by the keeper on my arm.

[Guest]

I think they turned out pretty cool, it's a cool pair! Especially since it's your first go.

What can I say about checkerboard... Try to keep the middle of the plait upwards towards you at all times and every now and then look down the thong so you don't wander.

[Brandon "Sparky" Lam]

Thanks Erik!! I'll try, but it's like the one pattern I can't get straight at the moment haha

So update on the whips, I've waxed them, and played with them a bit! Here's an image of them waxed, though it's flaking quite a bit cause I got way too excited, and played with them before they were even dry....woops.
[img=Waxed]http://imgur.com/zGzLle4.jpg[/img]

Here's a short video of me playing with them, anyone have any ideas of what I could learn? Also I've almost never used my left hand, that's gonna be fun to learn T_T
https://youtu.be/HsrbrrKwvTI

One thing I've learnt is that I should wax the handle first, then put the thong in the handle before waxing the entire thing. By pulling the thong through the keeper, it caused a huge amount of flaking, though that might because my keepers were SO tight. These keepers will not move now, I cannot even pull them apart if I wanted to haha
By the way, thank you to everyone who gave me advice, I will definitely experiment more with stockwhips once I get the money to gather more materials. I think I'll try fibreglass handles, they might make things lighter (these ones are definitely a little on the heavy side, but since I'm used to bullwhips, it's ok for now)

[Bob Ouellette]

For what it's worth, as a whip enthusiast, thrower, and collector, I'll second the but about steel. Even a light thong on light handles can be tiring very quickly. As for the keepers, my Mike Murphy stock whips have keepers large enough to get the two pieces together without struggling. The hardest part is to get one keeper into the other. I recently had Peter Jack make a pair of 4' latigo lashes. They are fairly light in comparison to the original 6' lashes. The keepers on the new lashes are larger than on the originals, but I haven't noticed any difference in performance.

[Bob Ouellette]

Btw, the whips look good for your first attempt.

Also, I recommend a big hat when trying anything new with two hands. Mine has saved my face a few times!