My bullwhips comparison thread

[riku1914]

These are some comparison pictures of my first 3 leather whips

I made, in order from right to left, ( 3 , 2 , 1 )

And if it's top to bottom it'll be:
3
2
1

Here they are, first two are 12 plait, third is 8 plait, all are 8', but the first one needed a new fall hitch tied so it's about 7.5' now:




Uploaded with ImageShack.us



Uploaded with ImageShack.us



Hitches aren't as bunched as they look in the pic. Weird.

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

[riku1914]

I forgot to mention that the first is made of calf, number 2 and 3

of kangaroo.

[Cracker]

Nice work !

[fifthchamber]

Really nice work J... For your "first" job? highly impressive craftsmanship!

Hats off to you and your skill mate!

[Holt]

very nice work!!:TOH:

[riku1914]

Thanks everybody I really appreciate the compliments

[Marhala]

Wow! They look great! Sometimes lighting or the angle you choose for a pic won't make justice to your work. What impresses me much about your whips Jeremy, is that all your THs are great! I still have a lot of problems shaping and tying them.

Congratulations! Keep up the good work.


Aldo.

[riku1914]

Wow! They look great! Sometimes lighting or the angle you choose for a pic won't make justice to your work. What impresses me much about your whips Jeremy, is that all your THs are great! I still have a lot of problems shaping and tying them.

Congratulations! Keep up the good work.


Aldo.

Thanks Aldo, I am self taught with turk's heads, aside from Bernie's youtube video. I just look at a knot and pretty much know

how to tie it. I'll show you a pic of one of my foundations if you want to see what it looks like to get that shape ( BTW I

don't shape it them with thread like you do, all lead and leather,well I do bind a small part of the whip under the transition knot

with artificial sinew )

edit: After my most recent whip, I learned that for transition knots, I like to bevel the undersides of the strands, but for the

big 3 pass heel knot, I like beveling opposite corners. On that dark brown whip I did opposite corners for both, and they fit

better on the heel knot, but on the transition the underside has worked better for me.

When I do pineapples though I like underside, it fits better on that knot.

Also for the width of the strands I just do it by eye, I have yet to find somebodies "equation" for TH strand width that actually

worked. For me, this is just what works best.


I do envy your being able to freehand cut though Aldo. On my latest whip, I had to max out my DW strander for the second

plaited belly. If I could just freehand it until the first turn then I would be home free but I'm afraid I'm not there yet. I can only

"consistently" freehand straight strands, and even then I'm still quicker with my DW strander.

[kwad]

Jeremy,
Great work on #3!

One thing that has definately improved is the taper.
The new one has a great taper to it.

[riku1914]

Jeremy,
Great work on #3!

One thing that has definately improved is the taper.
The new one has a great taper to it.

Thank you, here is a picture of just the third one alone, I took it just after putting the fall on, so there's no shellac, but you can

see the taper. It looks like there's a kink in it there on the last couple feet, there isn't, it's just how I set it down.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

edit: you may be wondering, "if he just put the fall on, why are there knots and why is it rolled???"

Well, I did the knots and the rolling before the fall because I finished the overlay and was still waiting on whitehide from midwest.

So I tied a loose fall hitch around a light fall I had sitting around, and did the knots and rolling.

There, I've satisfied your curiosity

[kwad]

My curiosity will never be satisfied!

What made you decide to do 8 plt for this whip?
Is the point 6plt, or did you continue the 8 all the way to the tip? (Looks like 6 on my monitor, but, I need new glasses)

Honestly, you have come a long way from that vinyl whip.

I need to get started on my next whip, but, I can't seem to decide on what to try making (leaning towards a 7' target whip). I think I also want to get a splitter before I start. The cowhide I have is pretty even in thickness when it is new, but, after it is stretched the thickness is all over the place.

[Marhala]

I do envy your being able to freehand cut though Aldo. On my latest whip, I had to max out my DW strander for the second

plaited belly. If I could just freehand it until the first turn then I would be home free but I'm afraid I'm not there yet. I can only

"consistently" freehand straight strands, and even then I'm still quicker with my DW strander.

Thank you so much for your comments, Jeremy. I'm pretty sure many whipmakers will tell you the same: freehand cutting isn't as hard as it seems. I was mentally blocked regarding freehand cutting, until I tricked myself into believing it wasn't.

One thing you have to remember, is that you first cut wider, and then resize. Cutting wider allows you to cut not so accurately so you can err a bit here and there. You then stretch and resize.

I learned freehand cutting using a whole goat hide which was extremely cheap. It wasn't a tannage suitable for cutting strands (they broke while cutting them!). But it helped me a lot to learn how to place my hand, hold the knife, keep a steady hand and the like. Needless to say, all the lace cut that time went straight to the garbage!

Aldo.

[riku1914]

My curiosity will never be satisfied!

What made you decide to do 8 plt for this whip?
Is the point 6plt, or did you continue the 8 all the way to the tip? (Looks like 6 on my monitor, but, I need new glasses)

Honestly, you have come a long way from that vinyl whip.

I need to get started on my next whip, but, I can't seem to decide on what to try making (leaning towards a 7' target whip). I think I also want to get a splitter before I start. The cowhide I have is pretty even in thickness when it is new, but, after it is stretched the thickness is all over the place.

I would suggest you just get a DW splitter, as bolsters really don't need split. This is not just my opinion, I've spoken to several

professional whip makers that too believe cowhide/kip bolsters don't need split for several reasons.

The whip is an 8 plait all the way. The reason I did this is because the buyer of it wanted an 8 plait, because it was cheaper

than the 12 of course. Also I offered to do an 8 plait dropping down to 4, and I explained advantages/disadvantages and they

decided to just have it straight 8 all the way. It was more difficult cutting this than cutting drops and I have to resize a couple

times while plaiting, but it turned out pretty uniform all the way, with the very occasional messup.

[riku1914]

I do envy your being able to freehand cut though Aldo. On my latest whip, I had to max out my DW strander for the second

plaited belly. If I could just freehand it until the first turn then I would be home free but I'm afraid I'm not there yet. I can only

"consistently" freehand straight strands, and even then I'm still quicker with my DW strander.

Thank you so much for your comments, Jeremy. I'm pretty sure many whipmakers will tell you the same: freehand cutting isn't as hard as it seems. I was mentally blocked regarding freehand cutting, until I tricked myself into believing it wasn't.

One thing you have to remember, is that you first cut wider, and then resize. Cutting wider allows you to cut not so accurately so you can err a bit here and there. You then stretch and resize.

I learned freehand cutting using a whole goat hide which was extremely cheap. It wasn't a tannage suitable for cutting strands (they broke while cutting them!). But it helped me a lot to learn how to place my hand, hold the knife, keep a steady hand and the like. Needless to say, all the lace cut that time went straight to the garbage!

Aldo.

My first whip was freehand cut, and I did cut very wide, but I don't think I had enough patience with resizing, or the paring

skills to get much out of it. I ended up using 2, 9 sq. ft. calf hides, and I used the calf for bolsters. Also I had enough left over

to cut the bolsters for my second leather whip.

[iwantamorganreelbad1]

Hey jeremy, when i order do you think you could make my whip in the color scheme of the third one?
I like that one best.

[riku1914]

Jeremy,
Great work on #3!

One thing that has definately improved is the taper.
The new one has a great taper to it.

Thanks for pointing that out, I hadn't noticed it before you said that. Also, I REALLY agree with you on terms of the vinyl whip.

man, I thought the vinyl one cracked well at the time. I took this whip out for about 5 test cracks before I packed it up and

even though stiff it flowed out straight and fast.

lol, you should have seen my first "whip". It was made of leather scraps I bought at a hobby lobby, it was a 12 plait ( found a

tutorial on a 12 plait nylon whip so didn't know how to do anything else ) and was TERRIBLE I don't really even count

anything before the calf whip as a "whip" The strands that were in the package were no more than 2.5 ft. long so I tied them

together as I plaited, and it looked so bad in the end that I covered it in duct tape. I cracked loud but that was only when you

did an overhead as hard as you could