3 Tailed 24 Plait Paracord Bullwhip

I like to call this whip the Balrog, and you shall not pass up on the opportunity to make it for yourself. The trick to making this one is to split the final belly into three strands to be plaited over in 4 plait each with the overlay. In order to get those three tails we are going to take our last belly down to a 6 plait and then do some shenanigans with the six strands to make them into the 3 tails, and then split the overlay strands going to each tail. This whip is made from 550 paracord, in addition to the 3/16 Whip Maker's Cord I used in my previous whip Instructable.

Its worth mentioning that this isn't an easy whip to crack, it takes a little bit of muscle. But if built well, and with good technique, it'll crack every time. This style of whip also doesn't really serve any practical purpose, having three tails doesn't afford it any advantage over normal whips with a single point. If you're wanting a whip to practice sport cracking with, check out my previous Instructable. All that being said however, this thing makes a very distinctive crack that sounds a good bit different than normal whips. Its less of a crack and more of a bark. Practical or not this whip is just fun and I'm sure you can think of more ways to make use of it than me.

If you haven't checked out my Instructable on making a 5 Belly 24 Plait Nylon Bullwhip you should check it out, https://www.instructables.com/How-to-Make-a-24-Pla.... In some of the later steps I'll refer back to that Instructable because the processes are the same. Things like how to tie a Fall Hitch or a Heel Knot, as well as how to wax the whip, are pretty much the same no matter what kind of nylon whip you're making and that instructable covers those steps in detail.

Materials

1. 1/4 inch steel rod https://www.grainger.com/product/GRAINGER-APPROVED...
2. Orange Whip Maker’s Cord https://www.theparacordstore.com/international-or...
3. Orange 550 Cord https://www.theparacordstore.com/international-or...
4. 550 Cord https://www.theparacordstore.com/550-grab-bag-1lb...
5. 3/8th Sinker Cord https://www.theparacordstore.com/black-sinker-38-1...
6. 17 Cal Steel BB’s https://www.amazon.com/Daisy-980040-446-Caliber-4-...
7. Hockey Tape https://www.amazon.com/SportsTape-Hockey-Tape-Mult...
8. Artificial Sinew https://www.amazon.com/Single-Black-Beading-Thread...
9. Leather
10. Staples
11. Paraffin Wax
12. Bonded Nylon Thread https://www.amazon.com/Bonded-Nylon-Thread-Modific...

Tools

1. Bolt cutters
2. File
3. Scissors
4. Jet Lighter https://www.amazon.com/Single-Lighter-Windproof-Re...
5. Vice https://www.harborfreight.com/2-1-2-half-inch-tabl...
6. Tape Measure
7. Sharpy
8. Hemostats
9. Lacing Needle https://www.amazon.com/Multi-Color-Stitching-Jig-P...
10. Utility knife
11. Metal straight edge or ruler
12. Staple Gun
13. Hammer
14. Roaster Oven https://www.walmart.com/ip/Oster-18-Quart-Red-Roas...
15. Thermometer (an IR thermometer is handy but anything works)
16. Tongs or something to lift the whip out of hot wax
17. Rags or paper towels
18. Gloves (I use nitrile gloves over cotton glove liners)
19. Needle Nose Pliers
20. Awl

There is more than one way we can come at this, for this Instructable I’m going to do a single belly design but I’ll also explain how to approach doing a three belly design. I’ve tried them both to do this three tailed whip and they both work great, I just think the single belly design will be a better Instructable and it comes together a little faster. Either route you decide to take, when selecting your 550 for the belly that will get split into the 3 tails, you’ll want the three longest lengths to match, or compliment, the colors you select for the overlay because it will be visible where the split occurs. When I purchased the cord for this build I was completely out of 550 so I ordered 100 feet of the orange 550 and the 1lb bag of 550 that the Paracord Store offers for cheap, it was far more than enough 550 for this project and it's a good price.

I've made a few prototypes using the methods in this Instructable. Because this whip comes down to three points its not a typical taper, and all of the kinetic energy is being dispersed into those three points. So in order to get a good crack you have to put more kinetic energy into it. In the design shown here this is achieved by making the whip longer, thereby adding mass, so we're going with 8 foot. At some point I may try this design as a 10 footer but that seems like a bit much.

-Three belly design

I find the three belly design to be a little thick so the overlay will be more likely to have gaps, but if you want to bind the bellies to have some more rigidity and spring, here is how I work out the design.

The core on this one is going to use a 3/16th high carbon steel rod, gutted 550 for the shot load with 8 inches of BB’s. Wrapping it with hockey tape will then help the first belly hold fast to the steel rod. With the core built the first belly can be plaited over it making the drops at the target lengths. For this one we’ll go ahead and wrap the belly with one pass of hockey tape and then bind with artificial sinew. The second and third bellies will proceed the same as well, dropping the strands like normal and then binding them with tape and sinew, while being sure to roll the whip after finishing and binding each belly.

The tails are going to be two foot each. If the whip is 8 foot overall, or 96 inches, and the tails are 2 foot each then that puts the transition to tails at 72 inches, or 6 foot. With three bellies we just have to get the third belly to be in 6 plait at or by the 72 inch mark. This one is going to be three bellies so for the second belly to end a little short of the transition to 3 tails we’ll take 6 inches off, plus the handle, then divide by 2 bellies. So 72 minus 18 gives us 54, then divided by 2 makes 27 inches between the handle, first belly, then the second belly.

The bellies are going to be 6, 10 and 14 plait respectively. So we’ll take our interval of 27 between bellies and divide by 6 to get our interval of 4.5 between drops in the first belly. Now we can take the 4.5 and work from our handle length of 12 to get our 1st belly drops. 16.5, 21, 25.5, 30, 34.5 and 39. From there we take every second drop, multiply by 4 to get our strand lengths in inches, divide by 12 and then round it off to get a length in feet. So for the first belly that works out to strand lengths of 7, 10 and 13.

Working the math the same for the second belly in 10 plait, with an overall length of 66. That’ll give us drops at an interval of 5.4, plus the handle length of 12 the drops work out to 17.4, 22.8, 28.2, 33.6, 39, 44.4, 49.8, 55.2, 60.6, and 66. The strand lengths work out to 7.5, 11.5, 15, 18.5 and 22.

-Single belly design

The inspiration for this design comes from Adam Winrich's single belly bullwhip design. If you have never made a whip before I recommend trying this one first.

For a single belly design we’re basically making a really thick core and then plaiting a belly over it. To make our core we’re going to bind un-gutted strands of paracord to our steel and then taper those strands by cutting the strands to incremental lengths after they’re bound to the steel. If we want these strands to end six inches before the split to our three tails at the 6 foot mark, then 6 foot minus 6 inches is 5.5 feet, 66 inches, times 2 because the cord has two ends is 11 feet. We’ll need 5 strands to bind to the steel rod, giving us 10 strands hanging off the steel. To taper then they’ll be cut at an even interval and to work out that interval we take the overall length, minus the handle and then divide by the number of strands. So 66 minus 12 is 54, divided by 10 is 5.4, so we’ll cut the strands at that interval. With our interval in mind we can also work out our shot load. For an 8 foot whip I think 10 inches of shot should be fine. We’ll attach some 3/8th inch sinker cord to the end of the 1/4 inch steel rod and load it with our shot, then tie off just past the shot so it stays put. The sinker cord can be trimmed wherever looks best for our taper. We’ll also wrap with hockey tape and bind with artificial sinew to provide rigidity.

-The belly that'll make the tails

Now for the belly (or third belly) it’s basically the same planning process, but we have to account for the 6 strands that we are going to make into the 3 tails. So since we plan to split the 6 strands into 3 tails at 72 inches, we just have to work out where the other 8 out of 14 strands are going to be dropped prior to the 72 inches. So we’ll take 72, minus 12 for the handle, then divide by 9 (for the 8 strands we’re dropping plus the strands remaining dropping together) to get our drop interval of 6.6 inches. So that puts our drops at 18.6, 25.2, 31.8, 38.4, 45, 51.6, 58.2 and then 64.8. With the finished tails then tapering in three steps over the last two feet, 8 inches at a time with the last 8 inches being the 4 plait with just the whip maker’s cord of the overlay. So the last stands of the bellies will end at 88 inches. With that last number we can work out our strand lengths to be 8.5, 13, 17, 21.5, and 3 lengths at 29 feet each. One last quick note about this belly, the last strands that go into the tails will be visible where the whip splits so you’ll want to choose a color that complements or matches your overlay.

-Overlay

The overlay in 24 plait will be much the same as the third belly for working out our strand lengths. For this to work we need to be in 12 plait when we split into the tails, 12 plait divided by 3 tails gives us 4 plait per tail. So we just need to drop 12 strands by the time we get to 72 inches. So once again we’ll take 72, subtract 12 for the handle, then divide by 13 to get a drop interval of 4.6. Running the numbers gives us our drops at 16.6, 21.2, 25.8, 30.4, 35, 39.6, 44.2, 48.8, 53.4, 58, 62.6, and 67.2. The remaining strands will all drop at the 3 fall hitches on the tails at 96 inches. So our strand lengths work out to 7, 10, 13.5, 16.5, 19.5, 22.5 and 32 x 6.

By the way, if you dont want to do the 24 plait overlay and only use 550 cord, you could follow the entire same process but instead of simply plaiting the belly (or final belly) the way you normally would, you could plait the drops like you would an overlay. So drop the strands into the core instead of leaving them hanging out the side. Then for the tails just take them all the way out to 8 foot with the taper at 7 foot, and just attach your crackers to the end of the 550 cords. I dont know how well it will work, but I'm pretty sure it will crack.

If you want to do a three belly design, the core will use 3/16th steel and 550 cord for the shot load and 8 inches of BBs. Keep reading for the step by step to set up the shot load and then skip to the next step of the instructable.

As mentioned in the planning we’re basically just setting up the shot load, binding on un-gutted strands of 550 cord, and then trimming everything to length. Starting with the 1/4 inch steel, cut it to length and then use a file to clean up the burs. Grab the 3/8th sinker cord and measure about 12 inches. Don't cut it to that length, we’ll leave it as is until we’re ready to trim it to length. At that 12 inch mark we want to tie on some of our artificial sinew to keep the shot load from sliding around. Go ahead and load in the steel BB's until you get the 10 inch load, you’ll want to pull the cord tight from time to time as you’re loading it to get the BB's single file in the cord when you measure how much is loaded. Once you have the 10 inches you need, slide the two empty inches over the end of the steel. If you wanted to add some weight to the thong of the whip you can increase the shot load to something more than 10 inches (for this whip more may be better). With the shot load positioned on the steel, use the hockey tape and wrap the steel from the end opposite the shot load, up to and over the shot load. Once taped, bind the shot load with the artificial sinew, starting over the steel and off the sinker cord going to just past the end of the shot load. You’ll want to bind extra right at the end of the steel to make that transition rigid.

Next we need to attach the five lengths of un-gutted paracord. Each length should be 11 feet long. With the middle of the lengths of cord positioned over the end of the steel, use a few hitches with the sinew to bind them in place and then begin wrapping the sinew around the whole mess nice and tight. This can be tricky but, and hear me out here, if you pin the roll of sinew to the floor with your feet you can keep both hands on your work, making this step a bit easier. While holding the sinew to the floor you just pull tight and roll the handle of the core with your hands, wrapping the sinew nice and tight. Once we're past the steel and over the shot load we’ll bind tightly at first, to keep the transition solid. But as we get further we can ease up the tension. If you want to continue wrapping with the sinew all the way out to the point you can, once the strands are trimmed to length, but its not absolutely needed. However you decide to bind the strands, you’ll want to trim them at the approximate interval we determined of 5.4 inches, with the final strand ending at 66 inches. And thats our core all done up.

This step is pretty straight forward, using the lengths and drops we worked out earlier just plait the belly using a herringbone pattern from the end of the handle and drop the strands as close to the target lengths as possible. If you want to do two strands at a time over the handle to go faster, feel free. When you get close to the transition from the handle to the thong, I like switching to a diamond plait to strengthen this part of the whip and carry it out to the first drop before switching back to herringbone at the drop. If you are going the three belly route then you may want to bind over each belly, see Nick Schrader’s latest bullwhip tutorial for pointers on how to bind the bellies and how see how he does the single strand diamonds over the transition.

If you decide to go the three belly route then just make the drops at the lengths worked out in the planning step. When you get to the last four strands you can just tie off the braid with some thread to hold it until the next belly is plaited.

Whether its the third belly or the single belly, you'll plait it like normal until you get down to the last six strands. When you drop from 7 plait to 6 plait you'll need to switch to a diamond plait. That'll be over, under, over, on both sides. Keep plaiting in a diamond pattern until you get to 71 inches. Then comes the tricky part.

To finish the belly (the single belly or the third belly) we have to split up the remaining 6 strands into pairs of two. Having hemostats handy makes this step a lot easier. Once the belly is plaited to 71 inches start by taking the two strands that are front and center and clip a pair of hemostats to them to keep them in place. With the two strands at the top of the braid and pass them around that back like usual, but don’t bring them to the front. With those two strands to either side, clip on your other two hemostats to hold the pairs of cord to the right and to the left. Then take the two strands in front and counter twist them together (twist the individual strands clockwise, and then twist them together counter clockwise) for about an inch, this will keep them from coming loose. Once twisted use a lacing needle to insert one into the other at just past the twists. Repeat this with the other two pairs of strands.

Twisting the strands together is intended to lock the plaiting in place. Lacing the stands into each other is what ultimately forms the tails into single strands that will neat not plait over when we do the overlay.

This gives us our three tails so now we just need to trim them to length and taper. Cut all three tails even at 88 inches and then slide the outer layer of cord back and cut out 8 inches from the inner strands of each tail. Trimming out the inner strand gives the whole tail the taper we want. After that, straighten everything out, trim the ends of the tails at an angle and melt them lightly. With that step complete we now have the foundation of our three tails and we're ready to start the overlay.

Plaiting the overlay is mostly the same as plaiting the overlay on any other whip up to the split to three tails. Starting at the handle you’ll plait the overlay in 24 plait, do whatever fanciness you want to do with the handle and then drop the strands like normal in the overlay. With the overlay we’re less concerned with dropping at exactly the target drop lengths and more concerned with appearance and function so drop the strands as needed. As with any overlay drops you'll want to slide the dropped strands under the rest and plait over it for an inch or two and then trim, melt and fuse it to the belly by pressing the melted cord into the belly. After the first two drops I then also flip the whole thing over and pull the working strands around so that the drops can continue from the lower most strands without anything doubling up (check out the video linked at the bottom of this step). For more finer point see Step 4 of my previous whip Instructable.

The strand lengths again are 7, 10, 13.5, 16.5, 19.5, 22.5 and 32 x 6, with the target drop lengths at 16.6, 21.2, 25.8, 30.4, 35, 39.6, 44.2, 48.8, 53.4, 58, 62.6, and 67.2. Strand lengths are feet and the drops are in inches. For the handle on the one I made here I went with a 3 strand diamond pattern and then for the transition I used the following template http://www.whipinfo.com/faceplait/?id=45f102d3b0da...

Just as a heads up, this part feels like it takes forever, in large part because half of the strands we're working with are 16 feet long coming off both sides of the handle. Take your time, don't feel like you need to rush through it, if you need to, just work on it a few hours at a time.

Continue plaiting down the length of the thong of the whip making drops like normal until you get to 70 inches.

We need to set ourselves up so that we can take the remaining 12 strands of the overlay and divide them three ways. To do this we'll change up the plaiting to a two strand diamond pattern. If you want to go straight from under 3 over 3 and into over 2 under 2 over 2 with two strands you can, but if you would like to make it a little nicer you can use the ever handy Face Plait tool to work out a cleaner transition. This is a little something I worked up: http://www.whipinfo.com/faceplait/?id=1863d6053ae....

Once we are set up to divide the strands into three sets you’ll keep plaiting just past the twisted start of the tails. At about the 72 inch mark, the two sets of two strands at the top of both sides will be passed around the back of the whip continuing the braid but not brought all the way to the front, just like we did with the final strands of the belly. This is to position them to the sides to align with two of the tails respectively. Once positioned, clip them in place with your hemostats. The goal here is to go from the 2 strand diamonds to having 2 sets of 2 strands to each of the 3 tails. This will set up each tail to begin a 4 plait herringbone braid for each tail.

Now we can begin plaiting the tails individually, I recommend starting each one and plaiting for an inch or so and then going back one at a time to plait all the way to the fall hitch. If you feel like you want to go back and tighten anything up at the split it’ll be easier to only undo an inch than to undo 2 feet. To start each tail we’ll have 3 sets of 4 strands. With 2 strands going to our left and 2 strands to our right at each tail. looking at the setup for one tail, 2 strands will be laying over the other 2 going the other direction. Take the top strand of the 2 strand that are behind the others, and bring it around back and over both of the strands on the other side. Take your time and pull everything tight. Now you’re set to just continue in 4 plait, under 1 over 1 on each side.

The fun thing with this 8 foot whip is that once you plait the overlay to the 6 foot mark, you only have 6 more feet to plait and you’re done.

Once you have each tail started this is a good time to take a break and shift focus to making your falls. If you want to make each fall the same length you can, but just for funzies, I make the falls 1 foot, a foot and a half, and 2 foot, all tapered halfway down. Making the different lengths makes for a more interesting crack. The fall hitch(s) should be 8 inches past the end of the 550 cord, or at the 96 inch mark from where the heel will end. Once you hit that target length you finish the tail with a 4 point fall hitch.

Once you have the first tail complete you’ll naturally move onto the next tail and so on. As you are starting each tail be sure to make everything nice and tight. As you near the end of the subsequent tails you’ll want to make sure you take your time to make them all the same length. If you go slow and plait one strand at a time you can get them right where you want them. Tie off each fall hitch and you’re ready to tie on your knots at the handle.

For making the Falls and then tying the Fall Hitch for each tail, I recommend checking out step 5 of my other Instructable for a detailed description https://www.instructables.com/How-to-Make-a-24-Pla...

As a side note, If you add 2 feet to each of the 6 longest cord lengths, you could integrate the falls into each tail with a twisted finish and lacing the cords into each other. For this whip that may be the best way to go, its not the easiest to crack so a finer taper and point on each tail may be for the best. I was thinking of trying it on this one but I didn't leave my self enough length to be sure the falls turn out right. To see what I mean, check out this video, starting from about 33 minutes in.

From here on it's just like any other nylon whip, you’ll set up your knot foundations and tie on your heel knot and transition knot to suit your preferences. Then it's into the wax, again nothing special here other than wiping off the excess will take a little more time with the three tails. While it's in the wax you can of course go ahead and make your three crackers. Here again I recommend looking over steps 6 through 8 of my earlier Instructable (https://www.instructables.com/How-to-Make-a-24-Pla...) which covers in detail setting up a knot foundation and tying a heel knot, waxing the whip, and then making and attaching the crackers.

You'll notice a few mistakes and blemishes I made here, though small ones. Since this whip is only ever going to mine its not a big deal but serves as a teachable moment I guess. Setting up the knot foundation went as smooth as any other whip I've made, however it came out a little large in both diameter and length to a small degree. As a result there are a few gaps in the finished knot. Prior to setting the knot though, when positioning the foundation and trimming off the excess, there was a bit of the steel core of the handle sticking out. To address this I just secured the handle in a vice and went to town with a coarse file. Once the steel was down to a manageable point I followed up by melting the paracord to fuse everything and then went at it with the file just a little more. When all said and done its not noticeable under the knot. Also I got a little close to the knot with the lighter when cleaning up the trimmed bit of cord, try not to do that.

After getting the

Like I mentioned before, this isn't really the easiest whip to crack and it takes a little more force to get a good crack out of. But if made well it shouldn't take much getting used to. The overall design kinda crams all of the taper into the last two feet that make up the tails and with three separate fall hitches its like ending the whip in 12 plait before going to a thick tapered fall. Point being its not an efficient design, and making one helps me understand why whips like this aren't more prevalent. Although if the point was to make a whip with more points to strike with, then this design may be the way to do it, but then you'll probably want to make all three falls the same length. That being said, if you do make one to strike with, I'm not sure I want to know what you would be striking. Also keep in mind that the kinetic energy is divided between the three points as apposed to being concentrated into a single point. Again, another reason why this design isn't the greatest.

Perhaps a standard whip coming to a single point but having multiple falls would be the better way to achieve a similar concept but with better taper and an easier crack. May have to give it a try some other time.

As you're going along making the whip I do recommend keeping notes. I prefer having a notebook to keep my designs in, this way I can refer to them easily is I want to make a second whip of the same design. Keeping a notebook also helps to track revisions to a design so that it can be improved on later and gradually refined. That also helps save a few feet of cord on the next build.

In any event, I do recommend giving this whip a try. The various videos I've linked to can also help set you on the path to making a typical whip with only a single point as well. Once you've made your first whip I also recommend the below video to get a start learning how to properly crack a whip.

The trick with splitting the thong into three tails is something I worked up on my own, but everything else I've picked up from the numerous whip makers on You Tube and else where. If making whips interests you I definitely recommend checking out Nick's Whip shop and Caliber Whips on You Tube as well as Adam Winrich's whip making videos.