How to take care of your whip
Avoid as much as possible to crack your whip on hard and rough surfaces like gravel,
pavement,concrete,sand.
Do not use your whip without a cracker.
Always check that the end of the fall is sealed . If not,heat it lightly with a lighter.
During the heating keep the lighter or the chord moving.
Caution:melted nylon can stick to skin and burn.
Press the end with your fingers ,or with any flat tool to seal it.
Do not attemp to wrap the whip around trees and hang or swing with it.
Avoid exposing your whip to direct sunlight or extreme cold for long periods of time.
Always watch for knots in the fall and cracker wich may have built up while
practice.Untie them if you notice any.
Use a damp cloth or a brush when dried to wipe off any dirt if needed. If wet,hand it to dry for a moment
before you coil the whip to store it.
Parts of a Whip
How to make a Cracker
The cracker is the replaceable twisted chord at the very end of the
whip.It is the part of the whip which produce the crack, breaking the
sound barrier.After a while , the cracker will wear out and will need to be
replaced. Before, the crackers used to be made out of horse hair but now
that polyrope, nylon is widely available it has replaced the horse hair .
Take a string of 40 cm ( dimensions might vary , some
like
their crackers longer or shorter).
Fold the string in two in the middle and hook it
somewhere
you can remove it easily.
Now start twisting both cord together and each individually too
in opposite directions. Hold each cord between your thumb and
index.
Twist until about 2/3 of the cracker.
When you have twisted enough,take one strand and tie a knot by passing this one strand under the cracker ...
... and back inside the knot.
Pull tight.
Your cracker is finished.
You can now attach it to the whip.
How to change a cracker
How to change between falls or replacing a fall using the interchangeable fall method from Ric Boyd
Some of the whips made by Silver Whips have the interchangeable fall using the method i have learned from Ric Boyd.
This method makes it very easy and quick to change between different lenghts of fall or when a fall is used and need replacement.
Here is a video showing you how.