This is the first bullwhip I’ve made in a while that I’m not proud of…it’s not a bad whip, but I’m not going to enter it into any contest either.  I did take it out and it cracks fine…so at least it’s got one thing going for it (the most important thing!).

This was my first attempt at a 20 plait bullwhip, so I’m not surprised that it’s not the prettiest thing ever.  I learned a lot making it, and the next one I do will look a lot cleaner.

I don’t know what happened with the seam, it should have been straighter…

The edge of the white kangaroo makes it look like there are gaps in the plaiting on the handle (there aren’t).  If I ever use white roo again, I’m going to pare both flesh sides so that I don’t have that problem.

I made the patterns by drawing them on a piece of paper, then tried to recreate it while plaiting.  Next time I’m going to write out the strands path, that way I’ll have all the thinking done before I get to the plaiting and things will be easier to follow.

When all is said and done with this whip, it’s not a horrible first try at a 20 plait whip…or 3rd try at doing plaited designs on a handle.

I think I’m going to list this bullwhip on ebay and see what it sells for.  It’s something that’d be hard to price because a 20 plait is a lot of work and I put a lot of time into it (compared to a 12 plait), but it’s not worth what I should be charging for it.

Now to redeem myself, here’s another whip that I finished a few days ago, but didn’t shellac until today:

This bullwhip is 12 plait in black roo

Louie
http://bullwhips.org