Cloning?? + rep

I have roughly 4 week old plants in veg they have almost all vertical growth and don't really have lower branched for me to clone off of

They are about 12 inches tall. I was considering toping them all and using the tops for clones. My issue is that they are already on the 6-7th node and over 1 foot is it still a good idea to top at this point. It seems like a lot of plant to remove from these small little guys.

I was thinking about not topping and just transplanting and bending them over to hopefully produce more branch growth. I'm just scared to top them cause of their size and I am a pretty big noob still at this point.

I guess I just want to draw on some peoples experiences to make sure this goes as well as possible

You can still top them
Just cut off the very top node

and from what i heard you can clone the tops

hope this helps

If you top and want to try to clone the first top, you probably need to take at least four inches, maybe even five. So you will be giving it a big haircut. On the plus, if the clone takes off, you will have a whole other plant. Sometimes topping encourages the lower nodes to put out branches, so it can be doubly beneficial. Some strains don't like topping, but I think the vast majority do perfectly fine with topping. You might want to try FIM.

If I top it will probably be the uncle bens 2 node top

upper shoots don't tend to root as good as lower shoots. I love recommending supercropping as a means to promote outward growth of plants. Pinch those branches and you will have bushes in no time. https://www.rollitup.org/newbie-central/288113-step-step-how-super-crop.html