Tutorial: How to Make a Popper / Cracker
For quite a while now, we have had several people asking for a video tutorial on how to make replacement poppers or crackers for whips. We finally managed to find the time to put together this video demonstrating a few different ways of making the same basic, standard 100% nylon poppers that we make. The thread used in this tutorial is available from MidWestWhips on the Whip Accessories page, and is the standard thread that many professional whipmakers use for their poppers. Feel free to also experiment with other materials, other popper lengths, and different diameters.
I hope this tutorial has been helpful, and please leave us a comment if you have any questions. Methods for attaching the popper to your fall can be found on the post titled Attaching or Replacing Your Popper/Cracker.
how bout falls?
nice totourial!
crackin dave
I’m glad you liked the popper tutorial. Believe it or not, we’re actually in the middle of editing a tutorial video on how to make your own falls right now. It should be up in the next day or so.
I just sent after a bullwhip yesterday and should be receiving it in a week and few days and I made some replacement poppers for it out of some spare shoestrings, or do I need to find some string that is a little narrower than that.
Twisted and tied right and allowed to fray on the end, shoestrings could probably work, although they may not hold up as long as a nice nylon popper. Also keep in mind that you probably don’t want your popper to be thicker than the end of fall it’s attached to – whips need a good taper from start to finish, including the popper. If the popper is thicker than the fall, it may still crack, but the inconsistency of overall taper could create unnecessary stress on the fall.