Bullwhips – Handmade by Louie

Heres the 16 foot bullwhip with the plaiting finished.

Yesterday I got in a bit more plaiting on the 16 foot bullwhip.  It’s just past the 10 foot mark:

The untangling of the strands has gotten much easier now that I’m way past the halfway point.  However if I ever end up making another whip this long, it’s going to have to figure in the untangling time into the price!

Louie
http://bullwhips.org

Last night I finally finished reading the Luis Ortega book, and it was an interesting read.  It’s a biography, not a technical book however every  now and then if you read between the lines there are some tips on working with rawhide.

If you don’t know about Ortega he was/is considered on of the best American rawhide braiders.  In the book there’s a story about how Frank Hansen who invented a string cutter (http://www.hansenstringcutter.com/) and sent one to Ortega.  Ortega sent Hansen one of his own string cutters, which was a hammer handle with a couple of notched cut out.

And that sort of proves the point of something I’ve been saying for a long time, you don’t need any fancy equipment to make a whip. People email me all the time telling me they are planning on trying to make a whip, but they need to save up for a fancy strand cutter, and a splitter and a whatever.  Really you don’t need anything fancy to get started..pretty much all you need is a box cutter to get started.

The strand cutting and prep while important, is a small portion of making a whip.  I bet someone like Joe Strain or Paul Nolan could turn out great whip with uneven strands.

So if you are thinking about making a whip spend $1.00 on a box cutter and get started.  Waiting until you have expensive equipment is giving yourself an excuse to put it off.

Also yesterday I got some plaiting in on the 16 foot bullwhip:

It’s been plaited past the first bolster splice and to where I’m going to make my first strand drops from 12 to 10 plait.  It should be getting much easier to plait now that I’m over halfway finished, and the strands are much shorter so there will be less untangling.

Louie
http://bullwhips.org

Yesterday I finally had a chance to plait the Peter Jack stockwhip that’s been kicking around for a little while.

I haven’t made a ton of stockwhips, so this was an interesting project for me to do.  There was some interesting things about how he makes his stockwhips…like how he adds lead to the handle.

This summer I’ve really become interested in stockwhips, so I’m hoping to make some more in the next few weeks when my performing schedule slows down a bit.

Louie

Well I’m still working on the 16 foot bullwhip.  I’ve begun the overlay and what a chore that has been!  With a long whip like this the strands are 24-28 feet long and each pull they get tangled up.  One solution to plaiting with long strands it to tie them up into tamales.

In the past I’ve tried this and wasn’t really happy with it.  I had done it with a 10 or 12 foot whip and at that length it’s not too much work to untangle them.  However with this whip at 16 feet, it ended up being a lot of work untangling, I was doing one pull, and then untangling the whole strand for its entire length.  Now with the tamale I have to reach through the pattern, grab the tamale, pull it through the pattern, pull the strand in place (tight) and set the tamale on the other side.  It’s still a lot of work, but much easier than untangling each strand after each pull.

Right now this whip is at the 31 inch mark:

I figure I will have to plait about 7 feet before tangling isn’t really an issue any more (so I’m almost halfway there!).

Louie
http://bullwhips.org

It seems like I’ve seen a lot of whip cracking this summer that I wasn’t expecting.  It could be that I’ve been semi-seeking it out in most cases, however to day it came a as complete surprise when I was heading to a gig at the Tacoma Maritime Festival and ran into a guy cracking a bullwhip!

The guy cracking the bullwhip was part of the Puget Sound Pirates:

Between shows I chatted with the pirates and gave them some pointers on cracking whips.  They used nylon whips:

Hopefully I now have some new whip cracking buddies!

I wonder if my noticing of a lot of whips around this summer part of whips becoming more “main stream”.  I think the popularity of “pirate culture” inspired by the Pirates of the Caribbean movies has helped whips become less shady (the popularity of the Indiana Jones movies also helped).  Another thing that has made the general impression of whips become more positive has been TV shows like Time Warp which show the science behind whips.

Or I could just be noticing it more because I’m a whip nerd….

Louie
http://bullwhips.org

All the snake whips that I was working on last week are finished and waiting to be shipped off!

These four whips are made from cowhide and have 4 plait overlays and kangaroo knots.  Here’s a quick video of me test cracking them:

Louie

http://bullwhips.org

Today I got an email that Ubraidit was having a 10% off sale, and there were a couple of books that I’ve wanted for a while and this gave me a reason to order them.  The books I ordered are:

Art of Braiding Bosal I

Art of Braiding Bosal II

The sale is good until 8/29, just enter the promo code AUG2010 on Ubraidit’s website.

Louie
http://bullwhips.org

Currenly I’m working on four snake whips.  I’ve done a little work on each so that I could show the progression of how I”m making these and then have one picture with all the layers.

Currently I have two of these finished and the next two should be finished today!

Louie
http://bullwhips.org

This morning I’m shipping out a 6 foot Indy Bullwhip to Ireland:

My current project is working on four snake whips.  These will be six feet long and be four plait in cowhide.  Last night I cut out six shot bags (I only need four), but the way the hide was I other two came out of part of it that I wouldn’t be able to use for anything else.

Today I’m performing in the Portland, Oregon area, so I probably won’t have much of a chance to get more work in on these.

Louie
http://bullwhips.org