Matched 8 Foot Dray Whips in Grayscale (Clearance)

A matching pair of 8 foot dray whips in black, white, and gray. These have 12 inch oak handles and take some strength to use, but have a very interesting balance.

I made these whips in mid 2018, after experimenting with a 6 foot version that is now in the care of Kit Atanasoff. My original thought was to combine the heft and dimensions of an American style bull whip with the flexibility and weight distribution of a stock whip. Paul Nolan had just introduced me to the concept of a swing belly, which refers to the swell in a stock whip thong. The nylon stock whips I was making at the time had a short run of BBs spaced a little ways from the keeper to effect the same sort of concentration of mass, and I took that logic to these dray whips as well. What I found was that the action was very fast, so direction-reversing cracks like cattleman’s cracks were a little tougher, but I absolutely loved it for flicks. This pair was essentially a vanity project, where I just wanted to have something unique even if it was challenging to handle.

I got the term “dray whip” from Daniel Borton, who informed me that the attributes I was combining were reminiscent of a couple different styles of working whips that may be called “yarding whips” or “dray whips”, though what I had come up with didn’t quite fit cleanly into either of those categories. I chose to use the term “dray whip” simply because I thought it sounded cool!

These whips are all original except for the new crackers.