It's a good idea to bevel the edges of these strands and split them as
well. It will sit them in nice and snugly and give you a nice smooth belly
to work from. To bevel the edges you can make a little jig like the one on
page 1, use a hand held sciver or a very sharp knife will do the job as
well.
You will have gathered by now that a splitter is a fairly essential tool
to have and if you are going to get serious about plaiting you do
really need one. Plait these strands now in a normal 8 plait but tight,
very, very tight. For the first few plaiting sessions we need to see
blisters and knotted scrunched up little hands until you get used to it. I
should warn you now your hands will in all probability get very sore and
stiff until you get used to plaiting. I'm not going to tell you how to
plait leather here. There are numerous good books around that will tell
you and show you all you will ever need to know. Books by Ron Edwards I
highly recommend,
they are easy to read and easy to follow.
Once you plait over your first belly you can drop two strands into the
centre and another two about a foot from the end of the belly so that you
end up with 4 strands at the end. Once again give it a good roll, wind on
your third
binding and tie on the last bolster. I usually make this
bolster about 3/4 the length of the whip and because it is so long I make
it out of thin cowhide. I can't suggest an alternative here because I
don't know what sort of hides you can get in your countries but a good
thin chrome tanned cow hide would be perfect and reasonably inexpensive as
well.
Now for the overlay. Take your time with this as this will effect the
final look of your whip. The overlay is going to be 16 strands. Now don't
let 16 strands frighten you, it sounds a lot but your only working with
one strand at a time and it's the same as plaiting four strands. If you
can plait four strand round you can plait 16 strands. Four strands is
under one over one and 16 is under four over four. For most people the
hardest part is learning how to hold the strands while you are working
with that 1 strand. Once you have mastered this you can do anything. Get a
good book on plaiting and whip making and all will be explained. When I
cut out overlays for 16 plait whips I usually cut the strands out 8 at a
time. The reason for this is that it virtually eliminates the problem of
your inside strands being short and having to compensate for that when
cutting out. This is also where having two hides to cut from comes into
it's own because you can cut two sets of 8 strands from each hide without
having to go around very sharp corners when your cutting. Did I hear
someone say what about wasting leather? You might waste a bit of leather
this way but I guarantee it will be a whole lot easier to do and in the
end save time. Don't be too uptight about saving leather and then again
don't be too wasteful either, you have to try to strike a happy medium.
When I first started off plaiting and working with leather I saved every
little bit I could thinking that one day I could use that piece of leather
for something. All I ended up with was a room full of boxes of leather
that I thought I would use one day and never did.