Wesley Scoggins
Indy Mogul
Wesley's Weekly HOW TO: Bullwhip
So you've been watching the Indy 4 Trailer , or simply have an impertinent need to tame a wild lion, and would like to have a wicked looking whip to wave around, but don't really want to go to any questionable stores to spend questionable amount of money on whips you might just be using once or twice for a fan-film. Well fear not, I am going to show you how to make one out of just duct tape.
First get some duct tape, you can use the normal gray duct tape, but you'll have to paint your whip afterwards unless you want a strange gray whip, which is fine if you want that, but not to groovy if you don't. Because I didn't feel like painting mine, I got some black duct tape that works nicely. I know that Indy's whip isn't black, but I couldn't find brown duct tape, you might have better luck on your own trek, but I unfortuantely did not, so I went with the next best color, which I think looks pretty good for a whip, but each his own.
I anchored one end of my tape onto a table, and manually pulled the tape off the roll so it didn't come off the table. Get about 10-12 feet of it if you want a full length whip, but you can use shorter lengths for shorter whips, just take about 6-12 inches of the final length of the whip, depending on how tightly you braid it, so if you use about 10 foot length of tape, when it's in the whip after being braided, it'll probably be between 8-9 feet depending on how tightly you braid it, keep that in mind.
Get about three strips of tape, anchored and pulled out in the same way.
Then fold each strip in on itself to reduce the width of the strips.
And begin to braid the strips together. You can find a great deal of information about how to braid different braids, but I went with just a very basic braid.
Pull the middle strand forward, then start with the braid on the right...
Pull the right strand around.
Then pull the left braid over the right strand.
Now pull the middle strand back forward again.
And twist the left strand back around behind the middle strand, in a reverse of the first braid segment.
And then pull the right strand back around, you now have a complete loop, you can now pull the right strand back around in front of the middle strand, then the left strand around, and push the middle strand back, and wash, rinse, repeat.
Keep on doing this, until the entire braid is finished, then tightly wrap a coupling of tape on the very end of the whip to keep the strands from unraveling. Next step, to get it looking a bit more whip-ish, grab both ends of the whip, and pull HARD, to stretch it out a little, smoothing out the braids, and also making them a bit tighter. The pulling will force them tighter as you pull it taunt, similar to pulling both ends of a Chinese fingertrap.
Now, take the flat strips of tape that you anchored to the table...
And attach them to any handle you pick for the whip, I used a piece of round scrap wood, you could also use a cylidrical piece of foam, a small plastic bottle, or just a thick wade of duct tape, whatever works for your needs.
Now tightly wind more tape on top, to bind it to the handle throughly.
You now have your operational prop whip. Now remember this is a PROP, not a real whip, so don't try tying it to roof beams and trying to swing around on it, it'll pop loose and you'll break something much worse than a whip, just don't risk it. But just like with the prop grappling hook, using some creative camera tricks, you can easily make it LOOK like you are. You can also crack it kind of realistically, but just like with a real whip, be VERY careful to not strike yourself.
But there you go, you have a prop whip that won't cost a lot, or require a special order!
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