Club Obi Wan

Hi gang! I'm new here. My name is Andy, and after a lot of painful decision making, I've decided on ordering an 8 foot Joe Strain Raiders style whip.

From what I understand, Joe is great on the phone, and I am planning on calling him and asking for a whip that's as close to Raiders style as possible.

Are there any specific details I should specify? Color of the fall? Type of popper? Any other things I should mention?

Thanks for any help you kind folks can offer.

I wanted a 10 ft Strain, but I, too, settled on an 8ft.

They say the Saddle Tans that Strain made that were supplied to KotCS had a 12 plait kangaroo overlay on 2 plaited kangaroo bellies, an 8 inch handle foundation, and a white hide fall. The Latigo falls are shown here:



But Joe says his saddle tan hide is really lousy right now (although I guess that could change any day). My hardest choice was between whiskey or natural on the thong overlay. I ultimately went with natural, but I still think whiskey would have been much prettier right out of the package.

Hi Andy, Welcome to Club Obi Wan.

Good choice. Just tell him you want a Indy style whip that's as close to the Raiders style as possible. For that Raiders look, you would want to ask for natural tan kangaroo hide and a whitehide fall as that’s what was on the original whips. If he has white hide in stock you will get one, but last I talked to him he was using mostly a high quality latigo for the falls. The poppers where black nylon.

Dan

Thanks for the help! How is whitehide different than latigo? If latigo is used, should I feel bad that I am getting an inferior material?

The main difference aside from the color is just in the way the leather is tanned or processed. White hide which is alum cured is snow white when new, latigo is more of an off brown and yellow and is actully tanned.

Good whitehide is very stong and tends to have a bit of elasticity too it, so it is more apt to stretch then to snap when stressed. Latigo is typically a bit more dense and greasy from the tanning process, it's similar to Australian red hide which many people of people use for falls too. I haven’t see the latigo Joe is using currently, so i cant comment on it directly, but If Joe is using it, you don’t really have to worry about the quality being inferior.

Dan

Hedji,

First off, Congratulations on making the decision to get a Joe Strain bullwhip, you won't be disappointed!

Regarding the Latigo vs. the whitehide falls, neither is inferior to each other in quality, they are just different. Just as BullWhipBorton said, they are tanned in different ways.

Joe has told me about this Latigo fall leather a few times for a while now, and I was finally able to pick up a couple of hides of it last week. It really is a great fall leather, it is EXTREMELY strong, and it comes oiled (as opposed to the whitehide which comes in very very dry, and needs to be replenished with grease, and is very hard on the hands to work with). The Latigo is really great to work with, and in fact I liked it so much that I made a nice 4 plait pair of stockwhips from it, and they turned out great!

So, you should have no worries about the quality of Joe's latigo falls or his whitehide falls. A whip made by Joe will be one of the best whips that you can buy in the world today. Enjoy it!

Regards,

Paul Nolan
www.midwestwhips.com

You can't go wrong with Joe it seems. He is highly regarded, and did spend some time with Morgan... The butts on his whips are abit different than Morgan's though, and you may want to stress that part, but the rest I think he'll give you what you want and beyond. As for the whitehide versus the latigo, I use whitehide falls on my whips and love them. I used to have latigo falls years and years ago, and they would always break off, but that may have been because they were too thin or not well greased at the time... Whitehide does stretch and I stretch them as I round them off, so as to take some of the excess stretch out. But if Joe is putting latigo falls on his whips, then I trust that it is good quality leather and wouldn't worry about it if he doesn't have any whitehide. You can always put a whitehide fall yourself when the time comes to change it...
Cheers,

Franco

This is all very good advice. Keep it comin'!

Canuck Digger wrote: The butts on his whips are abit different than Morgan's though, and you may want to stress that part

Can you elaborate on this a bit more? Any photo comparisons? I'm just wondering how exactly I should express what I'm hoping for to Joe, without coming across as rude or sounding ignorant.

Look just so we're clear here, I'm not dissing Joe in any way shape or form, but he makes his whips and David Morgan makes his, and they have some slight differences, especially over the years. The butt end on the whips Joe makes sometimes looks more round or ball-shaped, while Morgan's are more square, sometimes a bit tear-drop. Those change and vary depending on the movie you are looking at and even within the same film. I've seen some pics in certain scenes where the whips looked like the butt end was round and in others more tear-drop. It all depends on what screen-accurate means to you and just how important that is. I didn't want to open a can of worms here and perhaps I should have shut up, but there are minor differences in the look of these two whipmakers' work. I think if you study enough pics of each of their whips you'll start to get a feel for what I mean. Having said that, let me reitterate that this is not a criticism of Joe's work at all. I think he's probably one of the top whipmakers out there and pretty much anything he'll put his stamp on is bound to be sound.

The handle knobs on Joe' whips tended to be a bit smaller than Morgan's, who used a thicker and bulkier thread to build them. Joe is now making his handle knobs bigger and rounder, so they are more Morganresque now.

He also changed a few details here and there so that his whips look more like older Morgans i.e. "Raiders"

My advise, just tell him the length you'd like, specify a white hide fall, the color of the whip and let the man do his thing. He really knows his craft. Then sit tight and patiently wait )

Bernardo

Thank you for stepping in here Bernardo! How are you? I guess you never got any word from V-A? Oh well...
Cheers,

Franco

You guys make me jumpy.

Ok, not really.

I ordered an 8 footer from Joe a few weeks ago and am patiently counting down the eight weeks or so until the master can work through all the orders he must have now.

Assuming I just ordered through his site, do I really need to bother him with details of what I'm looking for?

Anything Raiders-esque will make me a happy man, seeing htat I've waited over 25 years to get something higher quality than a tourist cow hide. Do you recommend that I email specifics (a Raiders versus a Crystal Skull style)?

The funny thing is, I probably wouldn't know the difference if it wasn't for the COW crowd. You guys make me picky.

If I can't get a Jacka Indy 4 for whatever reason, I'm going to probably get either a del Carpio or a Joe Strain Indy 4.

Just got off the phone with Joe himself. What a pleasure to speak with him! My order for an 8 foot Raiders whip is in. Now I just gotta wait. This is gonna be fun!

Thanks, everyone, for the great advice.

If you want him to emulate a Jacka, you will have to elaborate a lot. When I talked to him, he did not know about the CS handle "extending into the core"

myrddin wrote:You guys make me jumpy.

Ok, not really.

I ordered an 8 footer from Joe a few weeks ago and am patiently counting down the eight weeks or so until the master can work through all the orders he must have now.

Assuming I just ordered through his site, do I really need to bother him with details of what I'm looking for?

Anything Raiders-esque will make me a happy man, seeing htat I've waited over 25 years to get something higher quality than a tourist cow hide. Do you recommend that I email specifics (a Raiders versus a Crystal Skull style)?

The funny thing is, I probably wouldn't know the difference if it wasn't for the COW crowd. You guys make me picky.

myrddin wrote: Do you recommend that I email specifics (a Raiders versus a Crystal Skull style)?

The funny thing is, I probably wouldn't know the difference if it wasn't for the COW crowd. You guys make me picky.

I think if you just specified an Indy style whip, you will most likely get the Raiders style, not the KOTCS style. I think it's reasonable to be a little picky, within reason. You're buying a whip because you like Indiana Jones... it makes sense then that you would seek out a whip that most resembles the ones used in the film.

Hedji wrote:Just got off the phone with Joe himself. What a pleasure to speak with him! My order for an 8 foot Raiders whip is in. Now I just gotta wait. This is gonna be fun!

Welcome to Club Obi Wan, Andy!

You chose wisely! When I ordered my 8ft Indy whip from Northern WhipCo, Joe knew exactly what I was talking about. I guess he's made enough Indy whips for fans over the years that he just knows what we want. I got a natural tan kangaroo hide and it came with a whitehide fall. Again, a few years ago. If I recall, the poppers were black nylon. Anyway, if you keep the whip conditioned and throw it a lot, you'll find it will break in quickly and naturally darken over time.

Again, welcome to a unique hobby!

I've been considering getting another whip. Seriously looking at a Joe Strain Raiders 8 footer. Now you guys got me convinced!
-raider 57