I started work on a 6 foot bullwhip. This will will have an 8 plait overlay. I went up to David Morgan and picked up a 58 dm kangaroo skin for this:
Here’s the skin trimmed and the core cut out:
Here’s the inner belly cut out:
Today I should be able to get the inner layers of this bullwhip completed.
Louie
http://bullwhips.org
I got an Apple Watch recently and I don’t like the band it comes with, so I decided I’m going to try to make my own. I remember seeing David Morgan wear a watchband that was kangaroo and I remember seeing it an old David Morgan catalog, but couldn’t find it on their website.
A quick drive up to visit everyone at David Morgan and we found an old catalog that had it listed:
For some reason I thought they made them in house, but they were imported from Australia. Not only did they find the catalog for me to look at, they also managed to find a couple of the watch bands! One was new and one was used:
Here’s the front and back of the used one:
And here’s the new one:
As you can see it’s a pretty simple design. It’s got the plaited strap, then the flat leather part. I don’t know the technical name for the leather part that’s not plaited, so I’ll just call it the flat leather part. You can see it’s got some edge plaiting on the flat leather part. I don’t do a lot of edge plaiting, so I looked it up in Bruce Grant’s book Encyclopedia of Rawhide and Leather Braiding and to my surprise I found the same watch band and the picture was supplied by David Morgan!
Will Morgan was nice enough to show me an early edition of the book that Bruce autographed to David Morgan:
Now that I had my foundation, it was time to make the actual watch band, we’ll get into that in another post.
Louie
http://bullwhips.org
Here’s the lace for the 12 plait handle. This lace has been hand cut, stretched, resized and pared.
Here’s the almost finished handle for the stock whip:
I still need to do some “finishing” things to it. Next step will be making the lash for the stock whip!
Louie
http://bullwhips.org
My current project is making an 8 foot stock whip. This whip will have a 12 plait handle and an 8 plait lash. I’m starting with a 61 decimeter kangaroo skin that I picked up yesterday at David Morgan.
For the handles I’m using a fiberglass stock whip handle. I got a bunch of these many years ago from David Morgan, they had surplus’d them.
Today I should get the handle finished and hopefully get all of the leather cut out for the lash.
Louie
http://bullwhips.org
My current project is working on a 4 1/2 foot bullwhip with a 12 inch handle. I’m using a 57 dm veg tanned drum stuffed kangaroo skin that I got from David Morgan:
This bullwhip will have a core, plaited belly, two bolsters and a 12 plait overlay. Here’s the first bolster sitting on the plaited belly:
And here’s the bolster after it has been tied onto the belly:
I then attached the 2nd bolster (not pictured) and cut out the 12 plait overlay:
Tomorrow I’ll get onto plaiting the overlay.
Louie
http://bullwhips.org
I recently had an order come in for a 24 plait riding crop in brown kangaroo. Here’s the riding crop before a coat of shellac:
And after a coat of shellac:
Here’s a close up of some of the plaiting:
The core of this riding crop is cane that was wrapped in rawhide. Next up is making an 8 foot 4 plait cowhide bullwhip.
Louie
http://bullwhips.org
Here’s a bullwhip that I finished a while ago, but hadn’t shellac’d.
It’s now ready to go and listed on my IN STOCK whips page.
Louie
http://bullwhips.org
Here’s another signal whip that I made the other day:
This one has a loop on the end to make the cracker easily replaceable.
This signal whip is available on my IN STOCK whips page. I think I may pick up some more black kangaroo and make some more of these signal whips.
Louie
http://bullwhips.org
Right now I’m working on a six foot 12 plait bullwhip in natural tan kangaroo. I had some natural tan in stock, so I didn’t need to drive up to David Morgan to pick up a kangaroo skin. I’m using a 57dm skin, however I also found a belly that I had cut out a while ago for something else, but for whatever reason didn’t use in black kangaroo. Since this will be in the inside of the whip you won’t see it.
Currently I have both bellies and bolsters finished.
Next up is to put some lead on for the knot foundation on get to work on the overlay.
People always ask how I can cut out the overlay before I’ve got the inner layers finished. It’s pretty simple, I know about what the strand widths should be and cut them a smidge wider than that. I then will resize them once the inner layers are finished.
On the surface it sounds like it’s more work than cutting it later, however it actually saves me time. By doing all of one task at the same time (i.e. strand cutting) it saves time in set up and clean up. Regardless of what point I cut the strands they still need to pared which also accomplishes the resizing.
The more I make whips, the more I’m looking for ways to save time…not cut corners, but to save time by eliminating steps that are duplicate, like sweeping the floor twice or putting away the leather only to take it back out an hour later. While these are small amounts of time, when you add them all up they can add up to a decent chunk of time.
Louie
http://bullwhips.org
Yesterday I got some braiding done and cut out some of the lace for the whips. Here’s a couple of overlays and an inner and out belly:
I’m always amazed at how fast the inner layers of the whip get made, it’s the final layer that takes all the time, especially when I already have the bolsters cut out.
Louie
http://bullwhips.org