Protecting the Braiding on a Bullwhip

When you realize that your bullwhip is no longer working at its best it does not mean that you will have to get rid of it or put it in for expensive repairs. With a little bit of care and effort a lot of them can be done at home and before you know it you will be using your favourite whip again. While you may not be punishing your whip in the ways that the cowboys used to, if you spend time practicing and then taking part in competitions or displays you will still be putting a lot of pressure onto the fall. It will be a good idea to have a regular look at your bullwhip as all too often the damage is both noticeable and treatable at an early stage.
There are a number of things that can go wrong with the bullwhip and one is damage to the popper but you can easily fix this. Depending on how loud you want the crack to be will depend on the sort of material you use to fix it. If you want it to be loud then you need to add nylon to the poly twine and this will bring up the volume to a level that everyone will hear.  It will be best to make sure that you still leave the poly in however or you could be setting yourself up for problems in the future and often losing a bit of volume when you already have a lot is going to be much better than adding something that is not going to benefit the whip in the long term.  By getting a good mix you can have a whip that cracks well and there is no need to worry about all the poppers tangling up and needing regular replacement. The less the whip needs repairing the better as often when something takes up a lot of time with either repair or maintenance it loses its appeal and you will find you want a less time consuming hobby.
Although bullwhips do suffer wear and tear it is nothing to what would happen to them the way they used to be treated. It has always been the last couple of feet that has got damaged so it is this area that needs to be the most protected. Once the braiding is damaged it is hard to fix and it could take a long time to make a new one that is properly braided. It is because of this that the fall was invented so it has clearly been seen to be a great way of cutting back the damage and meaning that the special braiding will last much longer.