Handmade Bullwhips by Louie
My current project is an 8 foot bullwhip. Here’s the inner belly and bolster:
And with the outer belly attached, but not plaited:
This bullwhip will be finished today or tomorrow and then it’ll be off to it’s new owner!
-Louie
Today I’m starting work on an 8 foot bullwhip. This will have an eight plait overlay. I cut out the core:
And cut out the two bellies:
The next step will be attaching the core and getting started working on the plaited bellies and bolsters.
-Louie
Sometimes when I travel, I make bullwhips in my hotel room. I’ve done this enough over the years that I have a system. It starts with laying down a plastic drop cloth on the ground to make my mess easy to clean!
Here’s the outer belly of the six foot bullwhip I’m working on:
And here’s the whip with the boslter attached:
And the 8 plait whiskey overlay that has been stretched and pared:
I have a way I lock the whip into the door jam to keep it from slipping out while I plait.
This 6 foot 8 plait bullwhip should be done tomorrow! This is a whip I’m making for fun, so when it’s done, I’ll list it on my IN STOCK whip page.
Here’s an 8 plait horse whip that I just finished:
It’s two tone in black and whiskey colored tannery dyed kangaroo.
This horse whip is off to its new owner!
The person who ordered the hunt whip thong from me a bit ago liked it and just ordered another one. This one is five feet long, where the previous one was six feet. Here’s the core before it’s cut out:
And the core after it’s cut out:
This whip will have a little bit of a swell belly, so you can see that in the core’s shape. Here’s the completed interior layers:
Finally work get started on the outside:
This whip will have an 8 plait whiskey colored kangaroo overlay:
I’m glad the customer liked the first one enough to order a second one!
-Louie
This was a fun project because it’s not what I normally make. It’s a lash for a hunt whip! The customer had been trying to replicate a lash that they already had, after checking out some pictures and getting some measurements, I got started.
The first step was ordering some whiskey colored veg tanned kangaroo from David Morgan.
Then I cut out the core, plaited they belly and added a bolster to it. Here are the finished internal layers:
After that I cut out the set for the overlay. This is going to be 8 plait.
Next I had to do all the strand prep, so stretching and paring the lace and then I started to plait the overlay.
And here’s the finished hunt whip thong:
I like the way it came out, and it’s got a nice crack to it!
-Louie
This Bullwhip is four and a half feet and made in 8 plait natural tan kangaroo.
It’s got a redhide fall, kevlar cracker and it was a lot of fun to test crack in my living room!
This is shipping out to it’s new owner in the morning!
-Louie