Club Obi Wan

Picture this-I'm playing Indy (in full garb, of course) for my daughter's 8th birthday party yesterday. My wife put together this great mini-adventure for me to take the kids on where they get to help me "find my stolen treasure-curse that Belloch!!" and it gets to the part of the adventure where I get to show off my amateurish skill with the whip. After cracking it just a few times for show and whipping a clue out of a tree, I'm rolling the whip up to put back in the holder and I happen to look down at the end where it tapers where the fall attaches, and I notice one of the plaits is cut almost all the way through.

Now I never noticed it before, and I certainly didn't hit the tree limb at all yesterday when I was getting the clue out-which was in a plastic bag, so it wouldn't have cut the leather-so I'm thinking it must have been cut during a previous practice session or maybe when my brother or dad were messing around with it sometime before.

That's really neither here nor there, though...my question is what can I do about it? Like I said, the cut is confined to just one of the plaits, but it's very close to the end-about a foot from where the fall attaches, so it's in a pretty high stress area. The cut isn't all the way through the plait, but the place that's still holding on is really small...it's just barely hanging on. What are my options for either repairing it or reinforcing it so it doesn't tear all the way? Or am I just going to have to keep it treated with Pecards really well and be careful with it?

Little help here, guys---so I can keep on 'in.

Oh...and one more thing....anybody know a good place to get a few new poppers? I'm down to my last one and it's almost gone.

Later y'all!
Indydawg

This happened to me before too. Because its in a high stress area, it could really screw with other areas with the whip. It will put more force on other strands and it will only get worse. It could also mess with your cracking considering it's not going to flex like it ought too.
The only thing a whip maker can do for you is to chop off the leather up to a strong point. Meaning they could go a few inches up past the area where the strand has given in and replait from there. Yes you lose a fair portion of the whip but its better then having to throw the whole thing away. Otherwise I'm not aware of anything else a whip maker can do.
I had mine done with Strain who charged somewhere between $25-$45 I believe and it was back to me in about 3 weeks and it moved differently and was done very well.
The strand could have given in from not pecarding, continual abuse, hard cracking, smacking the ground or even cracking on rough surfaces or wet surfaces.
I'm sure one of the makers here can give you some more options.

Contact the original maker about the repair...many of them will do minors like that for free... (Bernie at Em-brand comes to mind).
Keep in mind you could lose a couple of inches, but no big deal.
You will definately want to get it fixed though.
PM sent on the crackers.
Ron

Hi Indydawg, If I understand you correctly, you have a damaged strand about a foot down from the fall hitch. What type of bullwhip do you have? Depending on the type of whip, contact the original whip maker if you can about re-pointing the whip. What he or she maybe able to do, is un-plait the whip a few inches down past the damaged section, cut the old strand out and drop it into the core of the whip, then prepare a new matching strand and splice it into the whip re-plaiting that portion and re-attaching the fall. You may loose an inch or two from re-attaching the fall, but your whip will be as good as new and you won’t even know there was any damage in the first place. This is a common repair for most experienced whip makers, however, If the original whip maker can’t or won’t do it, there are a number of Whip makers here on COW who will for a small fee.

As for poppers, you can get them from just about any whip maker or supplier such as the NorthernWhipCo.com DavidMorgan.com and Westernstageprops.com or from even from me directly too. But I’d recommend saving a few dollars and just making your own though using my tutorial…

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fusea ... ID=5787754

Hope this helps.

Dan

BullWhipBorton wrote:Hi Indydawg, If I understand you correctly, you have a damaged strand about a foot down from the fall hitch. What type of bullwhip do you have? Depending on the type of whip, contact the original whip maker if you can about re-pointing the whip. What he or she maybe able to do, is un-plait the whip a few inches down past the damaged section, cut the old strand out and drop it into the core of the whip, then prepare a new matching strand and splice it into the whip re-plaiting that portion and re-attaching the fall. You may loose an inch or two from re-attaching the fall, but your whip will be as good as new and you won’t even know there was any damage in the first place. This is a common repair for most experienced whip makers, however, If the original whip maker can’t or won’t do it, there are a number of Whip makers here on COW who will for a small fee.

As for poppers, you can get them from just about any whip maker or supplier such as the NorthernWhipCo.com DavidMorgan.com and Westernstageprops.com or from even from me directly too. But I’d recommend saving a few dollars and just making your own though using my tutorial…

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fusea ... ID=5787754

Hope this helps.

Dan

hey Dan
GOOD job on using that hook on a swiss army knife!
I have NEVER found a use for one.... till now..

Cool....that's great info to have, guys. I'll try and get ahold of the original maker-it was made for me by a guy out in Seattle, WA who studied with David Morgan....I'm drawing a blank on the guy's name right now, but back about 5 years ago, he was just getting started REALLY making good whips, and mine was one of his first "official" jobs.

At any rate, I'll try and dig that up and if I can't maybe come back to you guys for a name of someone who can/will do the repair. I want it done right, so I would really appreciate some good recommendations of names. Does Joe Strain do this kind of repair work? How backed-up is he?

Later guys!
Indydawg

I'm going to guess the maker was Paul Stenhouse??

Louie

Probably Paul Stenhouse, however; I don’t know if Paul is still available for repair work these days. He stopped making whips after moving to New Zealand a couple years ago, I believe he is now back in the U.S. but I don’t think he ever reset up shop. I haven’t heard from him in some time either, He made really nice bullwhips though, I always wanted to get one of his Target bullwhips.

Anyway yes, Joe Strain does those types of repairs and is probably the person I would most recommend in the U.S. right now to do it. Joe is backed up a few weeks on orders but he usually gets repairs done a lot faster. Paul Nolan at Midwest whips is another I’d recommend but he is in the middle of a big move right now.

Dan

It's a Stenhouse whip-and it's really good work, too. Anybody got a lead on how I could get in touch with him and find out if he's up to the work? If not, I'll probably just try to get Joe Strain to do it....need to get it done pdq, though....I'm going to be needing that whip again in a few weeks.

Thanks for all the help!
Much obliged!
Indydawg

Did you not bother to read my post? Or did you just not catch the part where I mentioned Strain doing this same repair at a small fee? Either way, he does do it and he's done it twice for me and both times I was more then happy with the results.

I just figured since Stenhouse made the whip, and he might be available to do the work, I would try letting him do it first. If I haven't heard from him in the next few days, I mostly likely will go with Strain....I just really liked Paul and thought that he might be interested in it.

Thanks for the confirmation, though! I appreciate it, 'Dude!
Later!
Indydawg

Oh yes, by all means try to contact the original maker if possible. Only the original maker knows their work best. If not, then Strain is a good choice as well.