Cow Whip

[Ron May]

You can be very proud of it Mark.
Nicely done.

I saw the video and it looks like it cracks well.
How do you find the difference between the cow whip and a bull?

Ron

[Mark Elliott]

Ron, this is the only cow whip I've ever used so I can't really judge all of them, but this particular whips is a lot longer than I'm used to for one thing. The long handle adds a lot of leverage. The transition is not as stiff as with my bull whips and so it seems to make tighter loops. It' doesn't seem to want to twist in my hand like the bull whips do to follow a natural curve, as it doesn't seem to have one, or at least not as pronounce of one. That could also be due to the fact that I followed Rhett Kelley's videos and did not bind between the bellies. I did use a TT core instead of a shot core, though and did bind that pretty tightly. The lack of a directional curve may also be because of the way the handle is attached. I might put some kind of grip enhancing engraving on the heel of the handle next time, the smooth wood is a little hard to hold on to and I might remove more wood on the next one so that it wasn't so heavy. I was unsure of how strong the thing might be if I trimmed it down to much further, especially around the rim of the cup where the thong fits in.
Overall, I really like the whip, but you know how it is, always looking for something to try to make it better

[Ethan Mitchell]

Looks amazing!

[Robert Gage]

That looks splendid, Mark!

(Ron mentions a video. Where is it, please?)

[Mark Elliott]

Thank you, Robert, here it is. I hadn't posted it because I'm still pretty embarrassed by my cracking and this whip is so long that I had even more trouble keeping the overheads horizontal than usual. Ron saw it on my YouTube Channel
https://youtu.be/ibFZlYqn1Zo

[Mark Elliott]

Thank you Ethan.

[Rachel McCollough]

Very nice flowing whip, it looks great!

Don't sell yourself short, you crack a whip much better than I!

[Mark Elliott]

Thank you, Rachel.

[Robert Gage]

Thanks, Mark. That flows very well - and Rachel's right: your cracking isn't bad at all. (I think you said you have the WB DVDs. Steady work with those should bring great results quite quickly.)