Whip Care

Do's

Do keep your whip as dry as possible , or wipe down with a soft cloth and allow to air dry in a cool place in the eventuality it does become wet, then lightly condition

Do hang your whip when not in use (tends to reduce the curvature seen in some whips that have been left coiled for extended periods of time)

If the style whip you own has a replaceable cracker Do replace the cracker, when it's worn out cracking a whip without a cracker will cause damage to the end of the whip.

Do use eye protection while learning, you only have two and if you lose one your new whips going to be useless to you as you just lost all perception of depth.

Do remember that a whip cracks because the end has exceeded the speed of sound, care should be taken when striking things with the whip as damage to soft items that are struck with the whip may result. In the event the struck object is hard or has sharp edges the whip it's self could be damaged.

Do exercise caution when using a whip around others, unintentionally striking another with a single tail seldom results in a positive experience for either of the involved Parties.

Do Nots

Do not use mink oil or neatsfoot oil on your whip, either of these products while suitable for general leather conditioning will tend to overly soften and relax the leather allowing it to stretch resulting in the braiding becoming excessively loose , we recommend FiebingsAussie Leather Conditioner available from Tandy

Do not use your whip in a sandy or dirty location as particles of grit will work their way between the laces and slowly abrade them as the whip flexes.

It is generally recommended that your whip not be lent to others as much like a pair of shoes a whip tends to “break-in” in accordance with the style of the user and having multiple users tends to result in a whip that never quite feels the same after it's returned.

Do Not try to force the whip to break in faster than it wishes or fold the whip in a smaller circle than it would naturally hold on it's own all tho either would indeed increase the flexibility and flow of the whip it can ,and usually does cause the whip to break in unevenly resulting in a not quite even rollout which may persist for some time until the whip has regained it's natural flow.

About Your  Whip

Your whip consists of hand braided individually hand cut laces, all laces are cut from the same hand picked hide in order to maintain thickness ,consistency and color

Depending on the style of whip you own your whip may have a lead shot loaded core a wrapped leather core or multiple layers of braiding some whips have canvas or nylon cores depending on what the desired flex and weighting were at the time of crafting .

All nylon whips have a double shot bag overlay to maintain the taper and symmetry of the whip and are braided from Preshrunk laces thus allowing the whip to be cleaned without causing it to stiffen up and become unwieldy.

All Leather whips are braided using Fiebings leather conditioner on the laces at the time of braiding in order to achieve a constant tight even braid. Thus our recommendation that the whip be conditioned with the same product when required as there has been some speculation of late in whip circles that the mixing of different types or brands of conditioners may not be a advisable.

Practice makes perfect

It requires very little actual effort to crack a whip , if you bought a whip that is supposed to crack then it has in fact been cracked during testing and if it at that time failed to crack with little effort it would have been rejected , trying to "force" a crack by brute strength seldom works and is generally detrimental to both your arm and the whip.

Much like a pair of shoes a whip will last according to the usage it receives and like a good quality pair of shoes that are provided with a reasonable amount of care a good quality whip will give you many years of service.