Well here’s what I have done and what I have in the hopper with my bullwhip making. Yesterday I put the knots on a 4 foot “Neo Indy” bullwhip that I had started last week, but got put on the back burner while I made that two tone 5 foot whip. The 4 foot whip is finished and luckily yesterday it was ordered…so it’s going to ship out today. Here’s a picture of that bullwhip:

My current project is making a 8 foot 8 plait stockwhip. David Morgan mentioned that I should make a few stockwhips to help me play with how the weight is in my whips. He says that if you make three handles and three thongs, you can play with how the weight is by switching handles and thongs.
I’m making this stock whip basically from page 78-82 of David’s book Whips and Whipmaking. After this one if it turns out alright, I’ll probably make two more thongs with the weight in different places. One carried further out into the thong and the other not quite as far.
Right now I have the core and belly finished of this whip.

The next step is to cut out the bolster, then to cut out the overlay. One thing that Paul Nolan and David Morgan mentioned to me was that stockwhips were easy to make (compared to bullwhips).
Today it’s raining out here in Seattle (way to live the sterotype), so unless it gets real sunny and hot out soon, I won’t be doing any cracking today. But since I only have one gig tonight and not many people to call back about gigs today, I should be able to finish the stockwhip today.
After the stockwhip my next project will be another bullwhip. The points for me to watch are cutting my strands wide, but not too wide. That and attaching a fall and cracker of the appropriate weight. I’m going to try to engineer a way to make a lighter polypro cracker than I am currently making. Also I need to keep my knob a smidge smaller.
Louie
http://bullwhips.org