I took a quick break from working on the 8 foot bullwhip to make a 4 foot 12 plait bullwhip. This bullwhip will be in black kangaroo. Here’s the skin:
and here’s the skin after it was trimmed:
Here’s the finished whip, it’s shipped out to its new owner.
Also with tomorrow being Thanksgiving, I should say there it still time to order a whip for Christmas. Currently if you get the order in before 12/10/16 it will arrive by Christmas.
Louie
http://bullwhips.org
Here’s a 4 foot 12 plait bullwhip I was recently working on. The first picture you can see the change in the plaiting pattern from checker board to a 4 seam pattern:
Here’s the finished bullwhip:
The has already made it to its new owner!
Louie
http://bullwhips.org
Yesterday I got the kangaroo skin trimmed and the core of the whip attached to the handle. I hurt my left wrist on Friday, so work on this whip will be going slower than normal as I can’t do much before it gets very painful.
Here’s the initial trim of the skin:
The purpose of this is to simply take off the jagged edges of the skin. This gives me smoother edges to cut around. Then I cut out the two bellies:
These two bellies are for two different 4 foot whips. I bought a kangaroo skin that would make two whips.
Next today is hopefully getting the belly and bolsters of the first whip finished (before my wrist starts hurting too bad).
Louie
I’m currently working on a four foot 12 plait bullwhip in black kangaroo. I went up to David Morgan and picked out this skin for it:
This skin is a lot bigger than what I need, it’s 64dm, which would almost make an 8 foot whip. The amount of skin needed to make a 4 foot whip really isn’t that much and if I bought a smaller low 50’s dm skin, the leftover wouldn’t be enough to do anything meaningful with.
While I was up there the Meagan and Will showed me a bullwhip that came in for a repair. It was a black bullwhip made in the 1990’s at David Morgan. At 20 years old this whip was in great shape, no broken strands and the braiding was still very tight. It had been used, so it wasn’t something that someone used as a “wall hanger”. When you buy a well built whip (and you take care of it) you are buying something that will last for decades!
Louie
http://bullwhips.org
Right now I’m working on two bullwhips: A six foot beginner’s bullwhip and a four foot 12 plait kangaroo bullwhip.
The six foot bullwhip’s lash is finished, I just need to do the knots.
The four foot bullwhip is almost finished. In need to cut some more falls before I can call the overlay done. t feels like it’s been a while since I’ve made a four foot bullwhip and this one is turning out well (so far), I’ll post pictures later today.
One question I’ve seen a lot in a forums about braiding is how to determine how thick you need the strands to be to cover a core. I use a pretty simple formula that I think for me has its roots in a Ron Edwards book. With a whip I take a piece of scrap lace and wrap it around the thickest part of the whip. Usually that is near the tip of the handle, and where I”m going to put the transition knot. I wrap the lace around the thickest part and mark it and then measure it to get the circumference. Then I multiply that by 1.5. Then I divide that by the number number of strands to get the width of the strand.
There are some other formulas that people use to get the strand width, like taking the diameter and multiplying it by 4.5 then dividing it by the number of strands. Which for the most part gives you the same number as the formula I use. The main reason I prefer the circumference multiply’d by 1.5 is that is easy math to do in my head (it makes me feel smarter) and it’s one less thing I’d need to plug into a calculator.
When it the time comes to cut them out, I start a bit wider in case there is any stretch and taper by eye as I cut. Of course I’m aware of the stretchy spots and make the strands wider as needed when I get to them. Then after they are cut out I resize them to the correct size while I pare them.
Louie
http://bullwhips.org
Here’s a little card trick with a bullwhip that’s been in my notebook forever and I’ve never tried.
Honestly I’d be shocked if I was the first person to try doing this card trick with a whip.
The bullwhip that I’m using is a 4 foot 4 plait bullwhip. I don’t do a lot of shorter whips in 4 plait, however I’ve made several because I use them for tricks where the thong of the whip hits something I’ve found the thicker four plait holds up much better than a thinner strand.
Louie
http://bullwhips.org
It’s made out of the same construction as the 4 foot 8 plait bullwhips that I’ve been making, just it’s 4 plait.
Louie
Here is a picture of the pair of bullwhips that I’ve been working on:
I don’t have pictures of this yet bu these whips are finished (except for shellac).
Last night I started work on a signal whip in 8 plait kangaroo. Personally I like the way signal whips look with the braided cracker…but for sport whip cracking I prefer a bullwhip with it’s rigid handle.
louie
My bruised rib is feeling a bit better, but rolling the pair of four foot whips was very painful. I didn’t want them to sit almost finished while I started a new project. I also shellac’d a signal whip that I had forgotten to shellac a while ago.
Here’s the signal whip:
This signal whip has a shot loaded belly and has a nice weight to it. It measures approx. 42 inches from the butt to the end of the braiding and has a 16 plait “whiskey” colored kangaroo overlay.
4 Foot Matched Pair of Bullwhips
This pair of 4 foot 12 plait bullwhips are made from Saddle Tan and Whiskey colored kangaroo. They are made with 9 strands of one color and 3 of the other color.
I also split down every strand so they are the same thickness. Here are pictures of the two whips individually.
4 foot whip #1
(Whiskey with Saddle Tan)
4 foot whip # 2
(Saddle Tan with Whiskey)
Both Bullwhips
I’ve given all of these bullwhips a few throws in my living room and the crack well. I can’t take them outside because there’s stilll about 4 inches of snow and it’s raining!
Louie
http://bullwhips.org
P.S. All three of these bullwhips are available for sale on my IN STOCK whip page.
One of the bullwhips in this pair of bullwhip’s has the plaiting of the overlay finished. I still need to roll it, tie the knots, and shellac it, so it’s nowhere near finished yet.
I’m still struggling while plaiting after hurting my chest, my plaiting speed is a bit slower than normal, but I’m okay.
Right now this bullwhip has a redhide fall on it, but I might switch it for a whitehide one. I only have one redhide fall, so I won’t be able to have both bullwhips in the pair with the same fall. I haven’t used the redhide falls very much, but I did chat with David Morgan about them. He told me that whitehide ones are generally more durable than the redhide…but then Joe Strain has mentioned to me that he likes the Latigo Falls, so that looks like I’m going to have to do some testing for myself to see what I prefer!
This weekend I’ll probably start the overlay on the 2nd bullwhip of this pair.
Louie