BlacksmithNL Posted September 6, 2017 Posted September 6, 2017 Dear all, I've been fiddling around with whips lately. A good bull-whip makes a decent bang and is by far cheaper than anything else i can make. The only drawback is that there is no fire. :-( There are some whipmakers who soak their whips in liquid fuels, set the the whole thing on fire and then, when cracking, create a nice fireball. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JjprYD2Yhw Unfortunately this gives away a lot of the effect. I was wondering if anyone knows of a way to make exploding whip crackers? For those unfamiliar with whips, the cracker is the replaceable bit of string at the end of the whip that goes through the sound barrier to make the crack. I look forward to hearing from you. 1
Ubehage Posted September 16, 2017 Posted September 16, 2017 As an entertainer myself, I'm looking forward to any answers you may receive I know nothing about whips, I only have a little bit of practical experience with them. I just found this site, and by first look it seems to be valid information:http://www.tubewhips.com/whip-info/cracker.html
FlaMtnBkr Posted September 17, 2017 Posted September 17, 2017 Are you asking how to make an exploding piece of string? I'm also not sure what "unfortunately this gives away a lot of the effect" is in reference to? Are you saying that the fuel and fire takes away from the sound of the whip crack? Can you explain what you are wanting to accomplish again? Unless I'm just missing something... 1
patsroom Posted September 17, 2017 Posted September 17, 2017 Have you thought of using a tannerite compound at the end of the whip? The speed of the whip is cracking the speed of sound I think, that should provide the energy need to cause a reaction shock to the tannerite if it was confined to the end of the tip of the whip. But it would wear the tip away real fast............. Pat
MrB Posted September 18, 2017 Posted September 18, 2017 Not that i'm an authority to anything like whips, but considering the effect on an item that passes the sound barrier, i doubt there is anywhere near enough energy, to set a shock-reaction in motion. I suppose it would be easy to try. And if Tannerite doesn't work, creating a tiny "bag" and stuffing one of those paper wrapped silverfulminate "snappers", "poppers" or what ever they may be called locally to the whip-user, might work. The drag created by something like that would possibly stop the whip from going supersonic, but actually letting the whip hit something will set of the pyro, for sure. For clarification. I do not suggest anyone make silverfulminate for this. The pyro in question can be bought ready made.
FlaMtnBkr Posted September 19, 2017 Posted September 19, 2017 According to the link in second post, the tip is going about 1,100 ft/s which is far too slow to detonate a AN based exploding target mixture. Not even considering that going a certain speed isn't quite the same thing as being impacted by a piece of metal traveling that certain speed. AN based targets need a bullet around 2700 ft/s to start detonating reliably and also have a certain mass needed to explode. In my experience, once you get down around 30 g and less, they start becoming unreliable even with a hit center of mass. AN based explosives are notoriously hard to detonate and usually call for a booster charge to get a complete detonation. But any explosive sounds like fanciful thinking at best, IMO. I would think a wet whip would slow it down quite a bit with the extra weight moving around. Also, it seems like when something is on fire it doesn't move as fast possibly from the heat and flame envelop not being as aerodynamic and encountering more air resistance. If I were trying with a fuel I would try to keep the cracker dry and experiment with some of the high strength synthetic materials that might allow a smaller diameter and lighter weight cracker. I would probably start with some of the various braided fishing lines on the market which are known to be thin, strong, and abrasion resistant. Maybe suture material if I had an easy source. I would probably also try lashing on something absorbent a few feet from the end of the whip and try soaking with fuel to see if inertia will pull some out and provide a bit of a fireball when cracked. I guess a fuel soaked tampon is what I first thought of. Just what I would start with if I were playing around trying to get fire and noise from a whip.
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