Hi, all.

Just last night I completed a replacement grip for an extendable self-defense baton I had laying around the shop. They're commonly referred to as FlickSticks, so named for the motion required to extend the telescoping internals. They range in lengths and diameters, though I believe mine is 36" when fully extended.

The grip on this FlickStick came loose via wear and heavy use (I practice with all of the weapons in my collection), so I removed it, fully intending to replace it with a braided wrap when I had the time. Trouble is, patterned braiding was so terribly difficult that I had no confidence in my abilities to properly achieve a custom grip. I had some some patterned whip handle designs, but they all took far longer than they should have, and were very frustrating.

Recently my personal role model in the whipmaking world, Bernie Wojcicki, posted a YouTube tutorial detailling how he accomplishes his patterned handle designs. Though I despise the "spiral method" of braiding a patterned handle, it does appear to be much easier to work out each design. You see, instead of having to keep track of multiple designs, and the sequence of "over" and "under" stitches for each one, simultaneously, wrapping one color of lace around the handle (spiralling them) and feeding in the contrasting color one lace at a time allows me to work out each individual design, stitch by stitch. I was able to freehand the designs on my FlickStick, and only referenced graph paper once, to determine the right number of stitches for the zig-zag design.

Enough chatter. Pics, or it didn't happen. Right?

This is what I started with:


This is what I've got now:


Partially extended: