Handmade Bullwhips by Louie
I had a swivel handle bullwhip come in for a repair. It needed a new fall and the fall hitch to be retied:
I also converted it from the older Texas Style Fall to a more modern Aussie Style Fall:
I took it out and gave it a few crack, and it cracks great! This bullwhip has a lot of life left in it!
I had a bullwhip come in that needed a new point:
This is an older style swivel handle bullwhip, and I put a more modern Aussie Style Fall onto it
I took it out and gave it some test cracks and it works great! It also got a coat of leather dressing before I shipped back to it’s owner.
Here’s a whip that came in for a repair. I needed a new keeper and some knots taken out of the fall:
I started by removing the old keeper and string:
and a new keeper was put on the end of the stockwhip handle
then it was a simple task to untie the knots from the end of the fall:
Now this whip is back in cracking shape!
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
A little bit ago I got a request to fix the braided part of a bracelet. Here’s the pic that I was sent:
The wanted the 4 plait part replaced and the color hopefully matched with the original color. Here’s a pic of the bracelet when it was new:
The leather on that was glazed and by that I mean it has a coating of blue on top of the grain side of leather. For me to get that color in a decent material, I would need to either get lucky and find the color at one of my local leather suppliers, dye or paint the leather.
My trip out to look for something premade, I struck out and to dye it, I really wouldn’t get that color of blue. That left me with painting as the only real option to color it. Painting and dying leather is a pain, you need to give the leather a hit of deglazer, paint/dye it, then seal it.
I picked up two colors of blue and between the two I figured I could get pretty close to the original color.
Lucky for me the owner of the bracelet said the lighter blue straight out of the jar was what he wanted. I think the color came out pretty well after cutting the lace, doing all the strand prep and then completing the painting process.
Here’s the finished product bracelet:
In the end this is a better product as it’s a higher quality leather as I used kangaroo. Also the painted leather that should hold it’s color better than the previous glazed leather.
This was a fun project as it’s slightly outside of what I normally do.
-Louie
Changing a fall on a whip is pretty easy all you need in addition to the new fall is a knife, a blunt fid and some Pecard Leather Dressing.
The first step is to slip the new fall onto the lash of the whip.
If the final strand of the fall hitch is tucked under the end of the fall, pull it out.
Next, take the fid and loosen the fall hitch a little bit. Normally you won’t need to loosen it too much, and untie DO NOT the fall hitch.
Loosen all of the hitches.
Then stick the fid into the eye of the old fall.
You will cut out end off the old fall hitch with the knife. I use the fid to protect the lash of the whip from the knife.
Then pull the old fall away from lash, through the fall hitch to remove it.
Take the new fall and feed it through the fall hitch.
Keep pulling till it’s almost all the way through.
Retuck the final strand on the hitch through the eye of the fall (If that’s how it was originally) and then pull the fall against the fall hitch.
Retighten all of the strands in the fall hitch
Now all you need to do is put a new cracker on it and you’re good to go!
*You are following these instructions at your own risk. *
If you would like me to replace a fall for you, contact me for current pricing!
Another whip came in for a new fall. After a quick look at it, it also needed the point replaited. At some point this whip’s fall hitch had come undone and it someone retied the end of the whip poorly.
Here’s a close up of the end:
This is one of the cheap-o whips, where what it cost for me to replait the point and put a new fall on would cost about the same as buying a new whip. The owner said it has sentimental value, and wanted to proceed with the repair.
I got on it and here’s the whip with a new fall:
It’s back to crackin’ shape!
-Louie
It must be the season for fixing whips, here’s a swivel handle bullwhip that needs it’s point replaited and a new fall.
I’m pretty familiar with this whip, well not this exact whip, but this style. It’s the same as the very first whip I ever bought. Originally it would have had the shorter and wider Texas style fall, after talking with it’s owner we decided to go with the more modern Aussie style fall.
It was fun to test crack this whip!
-Louie
This wood handle bullwhip recently came in for a repair. Besides being coiled up way too tightly and very dry, it needed the point to be replaited and a new fall put on.
On a little side note, please do not store your whips coiled up like this. For a well made whip, coiling it tightly like this may put some memory into the whip causing it to be less accurate and puts unnecessary stress onto the lash.
I coated it with some Pecard Leather Dressing and let that soak in for a couple of days. Then I replaited the point and added a new redhide fall and the whip is good to go!
I offered to redo the transition knot, but the owner wanted to keep the original one. This is back in the mail today, and has a lot more whip cracking life in it!
-Louie