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These are the working whips I play with and throw nearly daily. These are all short whips because I live in an apartment in a rainy climate. If I’m going to practice I have to do it in small spaces. I have a couple more that are too long for most of the spaces I practice. I’ll eventually get photos of them here.
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This is a three foot (actually 40 inches) eight plat snake whip I bought from Rod Williams in the dealer room at LIL XII (1997). I didn’t own a whip at the time and hadn’t thrown one for about a year. I picked it up, looked it over carefully, threw it once and it went BANG! I immediately started negotiating to buy it. Later that day when I came back to pick it up, Mr. Williams showed me how to twist up my own crackers. I still do it the same way he taught me. This is the oldest whip in my working collection.
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I’ve recommended Mr. Williams’ whips to several beginners because they offer a reasonable compromise between quality and price and they break in much faster than any of the other whips I have gone through the process of with. Conventional wisdom says this means they aren’t braided as tight, and therefore won’t last as long. My take is: as a first whip they work fine, and beginners are more likely to stay with whips if they get one broken in relatively quickly and learn what a whip is like when it’s not stiff and new.
There is another school of thought that subscribes to the notion that whips are easier to use if they are stiff. If this is an opinion you hold, perhaps you want a whip by a different maker. |
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This is a three foot twelve plat signal whip made by Rod Williams. I bought it from Midnight Blue‘s in the dealer room of BR 2002. I spent the better part of the next three days getting a good start on breaking it in at the great classes they had there (taught by the likes of Roger Stevens, Sebastian and Travis). It was originally dark blue and black, but there’s only a trace of the blue dye left.
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This is a four foot eight plat David Morgan signal whip. It’s reasonable to assume it wasn’t braided by Mr. Morgan himself, but it was certainly made under his supervision. I bought it in 1998 directly from him at his store and it’s become one of my favorites. Originally, it was suprisingly stiff, but it’s well broken in now. Break-in took nearly two years of throwing it. It’s amazingly smooth and accurate for an eight plat whip. I recently had a new cracker put on it at the Morgan shop. This is the second oldest whip in my working collection.
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These two are almost a matched pair, except the left one’s a snake whip and the right one’s a signal whip. They’re four foot, and I call them eight/sixteen plat. If you look next to the end of the cracker on the signal whip and in the upper right quadrant next to the half way point of the fall of the snake whip you can see where they change from sixteen plat to eight plat. They’re very well made and nicely finished and not fully broken in. These are some of the heaviest whips in my collection. I was originally disappointed that they were so heavy, but I’ve grown fond of them. I bought them both at the same time in 2003 from Mike Murphy‘s web site, after hearing some of the folk at BR 2002 rave about his whips.
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This is a four foot twelve plat Joe Wheeler signal whip. I ordered it custom made in 2001 and asked for a ‘heavy’ whip. I got what I asked for—it’s the heaviest whip in my working collection. It’s a joy to throw, and due to it’s weight it’s very easy to crack. It does wear out my arm after an hour. I sometimes call it my exercise whip.
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This is the newest whip in my working collection. It’s a four foot sixteen plat Joe Wheeler signal whip and about as different from my other Wheeler as it can be. In 2004 I decided I wanted a light whip and sent a message to Joe to explore the idea. The next week he showed up at whip practice with this whip, which he was getting ready to send to Texas. I bought it from him on the spot and I’ve never regretted it. It’s not fully broken in yet, but it’s coming along.
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Copyright Ambrose McNibble 2005, 2006