So, You Want to Make a Whip?
A Review of Important Books
One of the joys of bdsm is making one’s own toys. Whether a simple collar
or sixteen-plait bullwhip, making your own toys provides a sense of accomplishment
and a bond with your implements that can’t be beat. You also have the satisfaction
of preserving dying crafts. Whips are not just the most common bdsm implement,
they are virtually a symbol of bdsm. They hold the same place in bdsm culture
as swords did in feudal Europe, indicating status and often experience. Almost
everyone tries to make their own whip at some point in their bdsm life. Even
if they later replace their creation with a professionally-made implement, the
homemade whip will always hold a special place in their hearts.
I should point out that I use the term whip rather loosely in this article to
describe any of a variety of flagellation instruments with at least one flexible
lash. These are generally divided into single tails (such as bullwhips or signal
whips), braided cats (either flat or round and generally having between seven
and fifteen tails), and floggers (composed of a bundle of leather strands, generally
between twenty and thirty, but ranging as high as a hundred tails or even more).
Even within these categories, there is some overlap, such as single tail whips
that terminate with several lashes rather than a single one. Regardless of which
of these types of whips that you are trying to make (most people start with
floggers), the basic set of skills you will need are common to all three categories.
Unfortunately, there is no single source for all the information you will need
to braid your masterpiece.
Patterns for simple, slashed and rolled floggers are easy to find. Both John
Warren’s Loving
Dominant and Molly Devon and Phillips Miller’s Screw
the Roses, Send Me the Thorns have good, easy to follow directions and diagrams
for them. Essentially, all you do is take a rectangular piece of leather, slash
it into equal width sections along most of its length, and then roll the unslashed
portion around a piece of dowel. You can tack reinforcing bands of leather around
both ends of the dowel for added strength and durability. Most of what you are
paying for in a professionally made flogger is the quality and artistry with
which this basic construction is accomplished. How well are the tails or tresses
attached to the handle? What is the quality of materials used? How well does
the whip balance and handle? Is it durable? Do you find it attractive? Well-made
floggers are functional as well as decorative. The most visible distinction
between them and most homemade floggers is the braided handle and especially
the braided knots at either end of the handle. Professional flogger-makers will
also weight the handle with lead shot to improve its balance. Several articles
in the magazine Sandmutopia(n)
Guardian discuss tress materials for bdsm floggers and their balance.
Braiding is not conceptually difficult, but it does require a lot of practice
to master and a willingness to undo your work and start over until you get it
perfect. It is also rather time-consuming and accounts for the majority of the
cost in professionally-made whips. The single best book on braiding is Bruce
Grant’s Encyclopedia
of Leather Braiding. If you’re on a budget, his book Leather
Braiding is available in paperback and contains much of the information
of the larger encyclopedia (but nothing new, so don't buy both). Grant has diagrams
for all the common styles of flat and round braiding. You are best off mastering
a four-strand braid for your handles before moving on to six, eight, or twelve
or more strands. The more strands you use, the longer it will take to braid
your handle. Grant also has diagrams for virtually every style of decorative
knot you are likely to use in your whipmaking career, especially the various
styles of Turk’s heads and gauchos. The Spanish ring knot is a popular
knot for beginners and it is great for quirts. Unfortunately, many of Grant’s
diagrams are small, cramped, and hard to follow. You are best off mastering
the very simple knots before going on to the large, interwoven Turk’s heads
that many of the better flogger-makers use. Many of the knots adopted by leather
workers owe their origins to rope work, particularly Turk’s heads. While
there are a number of books on fancy ropework, the most complete are Clifford
Ashley’s Book
of Knots and Raoul Graumont and John Hensel's, Encyclopedia
of Knots and Fancy Rope Work. Both detail several thousand different knots,
some of which would prove useful in whipmaking depending on what you are making.
Traditionally rope and leather were braided to increase their durability. For
bdsm play the primary reason is to provide a wider variety of sensation, though
a well-made braided cat will long outlast a deerskin flogger. Grant’s book
has the information you will need to make braided cats, which are essentially
flogger handles with several braided tails. Grant also has diagrams of the terminal
knots you will need to finish off your three or four strand braids, though you
can also just end them in straight tabs if you start your braid with all the
strands connected by a tab of leather. You are best off mastering the simple,
three-strand flat braid before moving on to more exotic variations. In general,
flat braids work best with an odd number of strands, while round braids require
an even number, though there are ways around this limitation. If you want to
make an authentic, Royal Navy rope cat-of nine tails, Ashley’s Book
of Knots will show you how.
Grant’s main failing is in his discussion of materials and material preparation.
Braiding is made substantially easier by selecting better leather and preparing
it properly. A good source for this information is David Morgan’s Whips
and Whipmaking. Famous for both his skill as a whipmaker and his absolute intolerance for all things bdsm, Morgan did not want to give away too many secrets when he wrote this book. It provides much less information than the title suggests, but what it contains is excellent. Morgan provides a good formula for braiding soap, instructions on how to cut and then pare your strands before braiding, a good overview of single-tail whip construction, and a brief course on braiding. Unlike Grant it is illustrated with photographs which make the explanations much easier to follow. In an appendix, Morgan has republished an 1893 article by W. G. Ashford on whipmaking. Morgan has recently published Braiding Fine Leather. It is an essential companion to his previous book and includes information on cutting and preparing leather, flat braids and round braids.
Single-tail whips are particularly difficult to make. Your best bet is to start
off with something simple and short like a quirt before working your way up
to an eight-foot bull whip. Grant’s Encyclopedia has three different styles
of quirts with varying degrees of difficulty that offer a good way to master
braiding over a soft core. When you are ready to try something more challenging,
though, you will have to look elsewhere for information. Grant has only one
diagram of a bullwhip, and it is completely inadequate as a guide for construction.
Morgan’s book has good information on repairing and caring for single-tail
whips, and also making and attaching falls and cracker, but not on the basics
of construction. He is especially vague on the construction of the core (or
belly) of the whip and cutting out tapered strands. For a long time the only
book readily available in the United States on single-tail whipmaking was Dennis
Rush’s Whipmaking. Crudely typeset and published, it was irregularly available
at Tandy Leather. With the recent
restructuring of that chain, it may disappear entirely. Rush studied briefly
under Morgan and a few other whipmakers and gives patterns and step-by-step
instructions for a bullwhip, a stock whip, and a snake. His explanations are
brief, and to the point, telling you only what you absolutely need to know,
and sometimes not even that. He is particularly vague in explaining how how
to drop strands as you braid and how to taper your strands while cutting them
out from the hide. The later is the single hardest part in making a single-tail
whip and is essential for the proper performance of longer whips.
The real gem in whipmaking books is the recently published How
to Make Whips by Ron Edwards. The founder of the Australian Plaiters and
Whipmakers Association and author of the Bushcraft Leather books, Edwards really
knows his stuff. In clear, easy to follow language he explains how to make Australian-style
stock whips as well as American-style bullwhips. The diagrams are excellent,
and he often shows you several ways to accomplish the same task. An appendix
covers fancy handle braiding techniques including how to braid letters and words
on to a whip handle. He gives more information than anyone else on how to cut
out long, tapered strands for a bullwhip, though a beginner could still use
more information. His instructions on dropping strands and constructing a whip’s
belly are excellent. His is the only book that discusses at any length why whips
are made the way they are and what the advantages of different styles and techniques
are. Edward’s use of Australian terms for things such as red cow and green
cow rather than their American equivalents is a little confusing, but you get
used to it as you read. The knots he diagrams are only the very simple ones
preferred by Australian whipmakers (5 part, 4 bight Turks’ heads), so if
you want fancy knots on your bullwhip such as those made by the higher-end bdsm
flogger makers, you will have to refer back to Grant.
Grant and Edwards are essential reading for any aspiring whipmaker. Each of
the other books mentioned, though, contains at least some information unique
to it alone. Even armed with all this information, whipmaking is still a craft
that requires long practice to master and its apprentices will leave behind
large piles of scrap, ruined leather, and unsightly early efforts. Like all
crafts, the joy must come as much from the process itself as from the use and
appreciation of the finished product.
Bibliography
Clifford W. Ashley, The
Ashley Book of Knots (Doubleday, reprint, 1993), hardcover, $62.50
Ron Edwards, How
to Make Whips (Centreville, MD: Cornell Maritime Press, 1998), hardcover,
166 pages, $24.95
Raoul Graumont and John Hensel's, Encyclopedia
of Knots and Fancy Rope Work (Cornell Maritime Press, 4th ed., 1952), hardcover,
706 pages, $30.95
Bruce Grant, Encyclopedia
of Leather Braiding (Cornell Maritime Press, 1972), hardcover, 556 pages,
$28.95.
Bruce Grant, Leather
Braiding (Cornell Maritime Press,1992), paperback, 173 pages, $7.95
David Morgan, Braiding Fine Leather (Cornell Maritime Press, 2002), paperback, 148 pages, $19.95.
David Morgan, Whips
and Whipmaking (Cornell Maritime Press, reprint, 1991), paperback, 132 pages,
$9.95.
Dennis Rush, Whipmaking: A Beginners Guide (Meta Publishers, 1992), paperback,
57 pages, $7.95
The
Sandmutopia(n) Guardian, particularly issues 5, 7, 12, and 24
About the Author
In addition to regularly writing for the SandMUtopian Guardian for five years,
Steve Vakesh was the co-owner of Bedroom Whips and has been making whips for
bdsm play since 1993.
Copyright 2000 and 2003 by Steve Vakesh