Paracord Flogger Buying Guide

Buckle up. This is going to be a bit long, but I'm breaking it up into sections to make finding what you want to know slightly easier. 

What is Paracord?

It's rope. Really, that's about it. It's 5-7 strands of high tensile strength nylon cord inside of a woven nylon sheath. It was originally used for parachute rigging, but is now the go-to cord for a ton of different crafts and utilities. It's strong, lightweight, and comes in an astonishing array of colors and patterns. I, personally, like the pastel rainbow cord we use in floggers like Rainbow Blight (pictured below).

What do Paracord Falls Feel Like?

That's a loaded question. Paracord falls can feel like so many different things. Some paracord is stiff, and scratchy. Some is super soft. Some falls will have flame sealed ends, maybe knotted ends, maybe weights inside or outside. There's a world of possibilities, so let's dig a bit deeper and break down types of paracord, and weighting options.

Paracord Basics:

I'm not going to get into MIL-SPEC Type 1A this, and minimum elasticity that. Wikipedia has that covered. I'm going to get into the textures of paracord we use, and the weights we do or don't put in them, and why.

Sheath Weave: We primarily procure paracord from ParacordPlanet.com, which is a great resource for the scale we buy in, and any of their cords can be requested for bespoke pieces like The Purple People Beater (pictured below) which we made for a long time supporter and friend of the shop. But not all their weaves feel alike.

When we made The Toxic Twins (pictured below), we wanted purple and green (The Contraption Shop's house color being purple and all that), but the two cords had wildly different textures. The acid Purple cord was soft and supple, while the Venom Green cord was a bit scratchy and stiff because of the material used in the accent weave of the sheath. One flogger can be held upright with the falls sticking straight up like the flame on a torch, while the other drapes down, fully under the influence of gravity.

This early project taught us the importance of sheath weave in creating sensations, and shows why it's important in choosing the right paracord flogger. 

As always, you can use our contact form if you're curious and have questions about color, cord, weave, etc. while dreaming up your next flogger.

Stretch: Because paracord was initially designed to be compressed into a backpack and unfurl to absorb snap-loads (read: people falling from an airplane) it actually has a minimum amount of stretch it can have, and that's about 30%. This means that a totally slack (in this instance that translates to being compressed against the weave pattern, or "scrunched up") will be 30% longer when placed under tension. So, while paracord can stretch, it's not elastic. The movement of the weave is what allows for elongation.

If you take any of our falls and tug them, they'll stretch a tiny bit. Maybe 3-5% of their total length. This is because our definition of slack is "free hanging" and not "scrunched up in a backpack" like the US government measures.

Paracord Flogger Design

Paracord floggers can be placed into three distinct groups when considering design: mops, socketed floggers, and overweave floggers.

Mops: Paracord "mop floggers" are floggers where lengths of paracord are bundled, folded in half through a ring of some kind, and bound to create a grip. Zestial (pictured below) is a particularly good example of this design. They're simple, utilitarian, and feel amazing in the hand. The falls on these floggers can (like all paracord floggers) be flame finished, use finishing knots, or have weights incorporated.

Socketed Floggers: These are floggers where a set of falls has been bound into a "plug" and affixed into the socket of a handle. These are a much more premium product, since all of our handles are lathe-turned in house, and take considerably more time to produce. Something like the Pink Pony Plug (pictured below) is a great example. It's a set of falls installed into an insertable, stabilized wood handle. We'll get to insertable handles in another article.

Overweave Floggers: These are floggers with a solid handle that has been over-woven with paracord to create a patterned grip. We don't do many of these, but occasionally will make one as a bespoke piece. They take up to four times longer to make than a traditional socketed flogger, and are reserved for very high-end pieces. While we don't currently have any listed (like I said, they're usually a bespoke item), below is an early example from a custom piece we made for a client all the way back in 2020:

Falls and Weights:

Our floggers come both weighted and unweighted, and there's some stark differences.

Unweighted Options: You have two basic options here; flame finished ends and knot finished ends. Let's dig in!

Flame finished ends are bare paracord ends which have been melted to prevent fraying. Pretty simple, right? Kinda, I guess. The Contraption Shop has a lot of floggers with flame finished ends, but we have two different methods that provide two different sensations. 

Standard flame finished ends leave smooth, glassy beads at the end of each fall, and are what you'll find in most paracord floggers being sold online. They're fast to make, and durable. But the motto at The Contraption Shop is, "Anything worth doing is worth doing to excess." So, we created the "cat's tongue finish."

Right now we only have one flogger for sale with this end finish, and that's Husker (pictured below). This finishing method leaves rough, micro-textured ends that have some scratchiness to them; think 120 grit sandpaper. We're not telling how we do this, but we are encouraging you to experience it for yourself. These fall ends will leave abrasions as well as welts.

Finishing Knots: Knot-finished falls are exactly what they sound like. A knot in the cord that binds it and provides a tiny bit of focused weight. They deliver maybe 5-10% more impact weight at the fall ends. They're mostly decorative, but do serve to concentrate the impact force for slightly less sting. We don't do these a lot, because they take a ton of time, and are primarily aesthetic. But, we do them regularly enough to have them available, and love them.

We typically use "double stevedore" knots for our knot-finished falls, because they rest symmetrically, and prevent a lot of tangles during heavy sessions. Our Green Meanie (pictured below) has 2/3 of its falls finished in double stevedore knots and looks stunning... though I may be biassed.

Internal Weighting: A lot of our floggers have falls with internally weighted ends. That's a fancy way of saying we remove the nylon cords from the paracord sheath (gutting it) and use the remaining textile tube to hold steel BBs. There are two ways we do this:

First, is the flame finished weighted end, which can be seen in the previous image of the fall ends on the Green Meanie. We insert 3, 5, or 13 black iron oxide coated (for rust resistance) BBs into the gutted paracord sheath, and flame seal the ends. It adds a ton of weight, while keeping the soft, linear aesthetic of a standard paracord flogger. These are available for all types of paracord floggers we make.

Second, are our proprietary back-woven loops. For these, we gut the paracord, stuff 13 BBs into it, and weave one end of the paracord back through the gutted sheath to make weighted loops with no seams. These are best seen on the fall-plug for an upcoming bespoke flogger we're working on for a customer (pictured below), and deliver about 3-6 ounces (85-170 grams) of weight at the fall ends.

For reference, a baseball weighs about 5oz (142 grams). And, at the end of a 13 inch (33 cm) fall-set, being swung from the shoulder, that's a lot of impact force. It's like being hit with a pitch thrown by a fairly athletic person... but spread out a tiny bit by the nature of being a flogger. A tiny bit. 

Please note, due to the laws of physics and geometry, the back-woven loop weighted falls are ONLY available for socketed or over-woven floggers.

Conclusion:

I mean, it's all up to you. If you want welts that sting like crazy, go for a paracord mop flogger. If you want concentrated weight that leaves deep bruises, go for something with our weighted loop falls. For everything in-between, we can make something you'll love.

We have a contact form for a reason, and love hearing from kinksters who want to add unique items to their toy-box. Do you have a wild flogger idea? Reach out and we'll get you a quote, usually inside 3 business days. 

The Contraption Shop loves pushing the boundaries of what a flogger can do, and even what a flogger is, so don't be afraid to reach out and ask questions, or spitball ideas. We're not just about making products here, we're committed to education and innovation in the BDSM & Kink communities.

--Panda Actual; Owner & Chief Mischief Maker at The Contraption Shop