The strap is a sturdy, one-piece whacking implement. Feel is high sting and low thump, and it makes a very satisfying crack. The Strap is unlikely to bruise, and may be used on most body parts. The only tricky thing about construction is the final weaving.
Utility Knife, Edge Beveler #2, Strap-Cutter (optional), Multi-stripper (optional), Skiver (optional), Clamps
Strap: 44" x 2"
The Strap is made from a single leather strap, cut as shown in Diagram 1. Start with a 44" strap of latigo leather, 2" wide. Cut each end into four ½" strips 10" long. You can adjust the total length for a longer or shorter Strap, and adjust the length of the strips for more or less handle. The finished handle will be about half the length of the strips.
If you own a skiver, you may want to skive the strips to make braiding easier. Just thin the strips by about a third.
Bevel all edges of the strap, including all four sides of every strip. You can apply Edge Coat now or after weaving in step 3.
Here's the tough part. Bring the strap ends together, and hold them in place with a rubber band _above_ the strips. It helps if you manually shape this area into a rounded form. Make sure the tops of all strips line up. You are going to weave a bit then clamp, while circling around the handle. Two clamps seem to work well. Use binder clips or nipple clamps ;)
You are going to use the eight strips to form an eight-strand, single diamond weave. That means each strip goes under/over/under, etc, forming a pattern of diamonds the size of a single strip. Of each set of four strips, the two on the left go to the left and the others go to the right. This means four strips go one way, four go the other. Braid in four-strand 'blocks', in which four strands form four diamonds. Your first blocks should be at the sides of the strap, and should NOT be mirror images.. that is, on one end of the strap, one edge strip first goes 'over' and the other first goes 'under'. Make one block and clamp it before moving on to the next.
As you braid, you are making a tube with a hollow core. This tube will act much like a Chinese finger-trap - scrunch it together and the tube gets wider, pull it taunt and the tube tightens. This is important. After braiding about five inches, scrunch the tube and push the remainder of each strip (about 4") back into the tube. Start with all four strips going the same direction, then do the other four. It may help to poke a small hole in the end of each strip and use a coat hanger to yank it through. Pull it taunt and they will stay there.
This is a difficult process to describe in words, so take a look at the close-ups under Finished Product below. You can always undo your braids and try again!
In the bottom picture, note the initial direction of the strips on this side. The top two go up and the bottom two go down. Also on the bottom picture, from bottom to top the strips first go over, under, over, under. If this Strap were flipped over, the other side would look identical.