An important warning for users of Spanker Machine

You all know that too much weight of the implements used will slow down the beater. Spanker Machine is spring driven; the spring's accelleration has a limit and will be less effective if the implement’s weight exceeds 100 g. Incidentally that also applies to very long toys. Shorter and stiffer ones are more effective.

High weight of a toy does not damage the Machine. It makes the machine less efficient. Nevertheless, implements should be light weight and most of them are.

However, another misuse might break the beater’s spring.

You will notice a rubber pad at the end of the beater's path slot stopping the beater’s spring like a “brick wall” – with a loud bang. The pad is thought to stop the beater if necessary but not constantly. The constant abrupt stop by the pad will cause the spring to break eventually.

It is your bottom which should slow down the beater to a stop before it will rest on the rubber pad. The cushions of your buttocks will not stop the beater abruptly but gently even if you are not registering that fast deceleration. Your behind receiving the full impact of the implement’s kinetic energy will be the benefitiary.  You should think of two very important, interacting limitations:

1.       Position you bottom so that the beater will not hit the rubber stopper first. If you are laying on your stomach, make use of a bolster to elevate your rear. If you are standing and bent forward at any angle, you should be standing slightly behind Spanker Machine. Your bottom must be first to be hit, not the rubber pad on the machine.

2.       As important as the position of your bottom are the toys you are using. Forget about everything flexible like whips, floggers, martinets, belts, whippy canes etc. They are too flexible. Their floppy ends will bend out of the beater’s path, the hard part of the beater will hit the pad with a “bang” and only then you will feel the business end of the leather toy on your bottom. That happens very fast, but you will hear the bang of the impact very clearly. You should test your implements. In principle you should use wood implements or stiff Lexan toys. Canes should be at least 6mm non peeled and not very long; many are very flexible, too.

If you listen a few times to the sequence of sounds, you will easily differentiate between the sounds of winding the spring, release of the spring and the toy either hitting your bottom and then the rubber pad, or the beater hitting the rubber pad first and then your bottom. Try to avoid the latter