Handmade Bullwhips by Louie
I finished the six whips, and my hands are sore! They came out great, here are the stock whips:
And here’s all six of the whips:
It always amazes me how much time is saves to make things production line style. Cutting out three of every thing at the same time and doing the same physical action three times in a row really make a project like this go quickly.
-Louie
I’ve got six whips to make, three stock whips and three bullwhips. All of them are going to be made from veg tanned drum stuffed kangaroo in natural tan color.
The three bullwhips are going to be more labor than the stockwhips, so I’m getting started on those first.
Hoping to bust my butt and get all six whips done in a couple of days.
-Louie
One of the nice things about living in the Seattle area is that I can visit the crew up at David Morgan!
They are my main source for the veg tanned, drum stuffed kangaroo that I use for my whips. The cool thing is that they let me dig through their stock, so I can find exactly what I need for the whip I’m planning on making!
If you ever get a chance to swing by their shop, the “shop bullwhip” is one of the best looking Indiana Jones style bullwhip I’ve ever seen!
It makes sense that their Indy Bullwhip is amazing as David made them for the movies.
-Louie
Here’s a swivel handled bullwhip that recently came in for a repair. The first thing is needed was to have some Pecard Leather Dressing put on it as it was pretty dry. Once the bullwhip had drank that up, I could start to deal with the reason it was sent it, it needed a new point and fall.
I also n0ticed that the heel knot was non-existent and it was just the knot foundation leather, so I got the OK from the owner to replace that as well.
Here’s the whip with the new fall hitch and redhide fall attached:
And finally here’s the bullwhip with the new heel knot:
This whip just needed a little bit of love (aka maintenance) and it’s back out there cracking!
-Louie
This was a fun whip repair that came in! This stock whip’s leather keeper had broken and it’s owner did a quick self repair by tying a knot to make it semi functional.
When I was contacted, I asked if they had a picture of it before it was broken so that I could try to match what it previously had, and unfortunately they didn’t. I did a little bit of research and found some samples of what I thought it might have looked like before and this is one the owner thought looked the closest.
The picture above is from Whips and Whipmaking by David Morgan. It’s an amazing resource, and if you don’t have it, you should get it!
I replaced the leather for the keeper and retied everything.
Also while I was working on it, I removed the knot that was in the fall and gave it a hit of Pecard Leather Dressing. This whip should have many more years of cracking in it!
-Louie