Paracord Whips

[FullContactGEEK]

Okay, new thread started.

Yes that was the type of whip I was talking about. I was sad not to had gotten one, but now I don’t feel so bad. No taper, oh no.
Now back to the ones I made. Yes, they have a standard three step taper. (Or a one third taper.) I brought them with me for a photo, but left the camera cord at home. (no card reader here either.) Turns out I had the first three prototypes in a box at the house. One like what you have with no taper, one with a two step taper, and the best three step.
It will be next week before I can get any pics. What do you use as a core? I use bead chain myself.
I also found a paracord bullwhip pdf file with great pics and tips. But no place to host it right now.
Where do you get your cord from? I was going to try cheeper than dirt, they have it in a 1000' roll.

Yeah, I'd love to see pics whenever you manage to get them.

For my cores, I've used BBs, ball chain, ball chain combined with heavier flat chain or BBs, and electrical cord wire. It really depends on the kind of weight one wants. I really like electrical cord wire actually. It's easy to work with, quick to set up and it leads to a nice taper.

Right now I get my cord from Vermont's Barre Army Navy: http://www.vtarmynavy.com/parachute_cord.htm
The pricing isn't too bad and they have no issues shipping to me in Canada, although the shipping costs aren't great. Plenty of flexibility regarding quantity.

Lots of people recommend Supply Captain. I haven't tried them yet. I've also ordered from Ubraidit, which is also highly recommended by many. I have also ordered spools of coreless paracord from http://rwrope.com/ but they were a bit expensive. However the time savings of not having to destrand the cords each time can be worth it and the cord is nice and flat to begin with.

[FullContactGEEK]

I made a 4' bullwhip today. I made it a little bit heavy after the latigo-y-daga style described in the Tom Meadows book Filipino Fighting Whip. The braiding is not quite as neat as I'd like but I find that happens more when I don't use electrical cord and the core is slightly lumpy. I took some pictures during some of the process for those who are interested:

This is what I used for the core.


The handle is a 10" spike with the tip ground down.


The assembled core and handle sitting on the board I use to roll out my whips.


Starting the belly braid.


Braiding in a clamp helps keep things straight.


Braiding the 12 strand overlay.


Finished.

[choubbi]

Cool new thread!
FullContactGEEK, could you be more precise on the core? length of the long ball chain, and what do you do with the big chain?
Also, the fall looks funny, could you post a picture of it?
Makes me wish I had the time to make my new whip...

[Goliath]

So, ehm... What do you use these for?

[FullContactGEEK]

Cool new thread!
FullContactGEEK, could you be more precise on the core? length of the long ball chain, and what do you do with the big chain?
Also, the fall looks funny, could you post a picture of it?
Makes me wish I had the time to make my new whip...

I wanted some weight so I went 2' on the core. The bigger chain is the second longest core length and is handled like the ball chain, except it is sheathed in the larger nylon cord you see in the picture.

As for the fall, well, despite my being a relative noob, that's one of the things I do as my "signature" so to speak. I wanted a loop on the end of the fall to be able to attach and remove the poppers easily, and so I experimented with a bunch of things until I came upon the idea of threading the cord through itself several times. It seems to be working quite well. The other thing I like to do with my whips is to use an alternative fall knot rather than the traditional stack of half hitches. The one I use is more compact and streamlined and I think it works better for nylon. It's called a George's Knot.

[FullContactGEEK]

I'm a novice cracker as I've only been doing it for as long as I've been making whips, which is a couple of months at this point. But today I got some practice in and we had the camera so we shot a little bit of footage of the performance of some of my more recent whips. The second whip I used in the first video, the one with the pointed handle, is a leather whip I had made for me by Victor SanSoucie of HandMadeWhips. The rest are all my nylons. The very first whip I use is actually the one posted above.

http://tinyurl.com/cy7tdj
http://tinyurl.com/cyzy5c

Edit....I am aware that I am being overly aggressive in my throws. Don't use my technique as an example of proper whip throwing. :)

[jag-engr]

I hope this adds to this thread rather than hijacking it...

I just saw a show on the Discovery Channel the other day about bull whips. The crack created by a bullwhip is actually a sonic boom caused by the popper at the end of the whip breaking the sound barrier! They showed a slow motion movie of a whip popping and you could actually see the distortion caused by the sonic boom. There are documented cases of the end of the whip going twice the speed of sound!

[choubbi]

They showed a slow motion movie of a whip popping and you could actually see the distortion caused by the sonic boom.

That would be interesting to see! If anyone comes across this online, a link would be appreciated.

[FullContactGEEK]

That would be interesting to see! If anyone comes across this online, a link would be appreciated.

It's actually Time Warp, Season 1, episode 10. They had Adam Winrich do some stuff and they filmed it at high frame rates. The fire whip and the can cutting was very cool.

I also just watched a clip of Anthony Delongis on Extreme Marksman which was also pretty fun.

[FullContactGEEK]

I'm working on a couple of snake whips by request as well as a couple of bulls inspired by some personal musings about Star Wars. No pictures yet until I'm done though. Hopefully it works out the way I planned. :)