Club Obi Wan

Hi guys, I don't know if anyone has noticed yet, but, Todd's now has some new whips for sale.
In addition to the 8 and 10 footers, he has added 4', 6', and 12' to his list. And, they are now available in natural, black, and burgandy.

I just ordered a 6 foot in natural to turn into a young Indy whip from LC (I'm going to remove the wrist loop and dye the handle section red and the rest black). I'll post pics and reviews when I get it.

Nice! Sounds like a fun project I would´t mind getting into myself!
Cheers!

Bravo

I just did a similar project with a 4' I picked up from WildWestWhips.com; it was nearly identical in make and material to the 10' I grabbed from Todd's last year, so I would imagine the process and outcome would be similar.

The 4' had shellac on the outside, which made the dyeing difficult; I ended up sanding it off. (After the fact, my wife suggested paint thinner) The black dye didn't take perfectly, but that was intentional. For the red handle, I tried some red dye and which resulted in a dark red color. I went over that with "Meltonian Nu-Life Color Spray" for red shoe leather, since we had a can sitting around, and that worked beautifully.

(Pictures soon, a bit distracted here at the moment.)

IT,

Sounds cool. Love to see some pics.
I'm wondering if there will be any differences in Todd's newest batch of whips (like shellac).

Also, just in case you ever need to remove shellac from a whip again, just use denatured alcohol.
Works perfectly (that is what they actually use to cut shellac anyways).

Wifey just called and said my new whip just showed up. Wow, Todd sure does ship quick!

just curious, but who makes whips for todd and are they pretty good quality? i've been tempted to get one myself.

-jlhampton

The whips for Todd's are imported from either India or Pakistan. (Robert Dante sells the same whips through his website at http://www.wildwestwhips.com and recommends them for his beginning students.)
They are constructed just like a standard Indy whip (two plaited bellies and two bolsters with a 12 plt overlay). However, they are made of goat hide and the plaiting is a little sloppy. (Wandering seams).

Unfortuntely, the whips are bone dry to the core when you receive them and require quite a bit of conditioning to get cracking.

The fall that came on my 8 footer (purchased 1 year ago) was decent white hide, but, needed to be skived (edges beveled) and rounded.
My only real complaint about the whips is that the leather has a tendency to stretch at the point, just before the fall hitch (I've tightened my 8 footer and retied the hitch 3 times now).

After a little setup and alot of conditioning, they are perfectly usable whips.
Actually, they have great binding at the transition and are quite easy to crack.

When I met Anthony Delongis at the QM summit, he commented on my Todd's saying "Hey, that's a nice whip you got there. Who made it?" I replied with "Awe, it's just a cheapie"
Anthony said, "I was watching you over there and you were doing quite well with that whip. It seems to be doing what you want, so who cares if it was cheap. It gets the job done".

Having Anthony say that that, made me feel much better about my whip (and my cracking abilities).

Are they made as well as a Morgan, Jacka, Nolan, or Strain.........No.
Are they worth the money for a beginner who wants an Indy style whip......Yes.

The new 6 footer I received (from his latest batch) is on par with the last batch as far as quality goes. The only difference I noticed (with the exception of length) is that the new one had a coat of shellac. Also, the fall on this one I do not believe is actually made of (alum tanned) white hide.
The fall was very soft, spongy leather that appears to have been dyed white.
That will definately be replaced.

I'd post a picture of it, but, it is already in the transformation stages.
So far I have removed the wrist loop, removed the fall, retied the turkshead knot at the transition (this one was really sloppy) and removed the shellac from the surface.
As soon as the red dye shows up, I can continue with the transformation into the young Indy whip from LC (from the circus train/lyon sceene).
I'll definately post pictures when it is finished.

Here's a shot of the new 6 footer



Note the transition knot has turned a darker color after conditioning (I had condition it to retie the knot) using Pecards gell (the stuff with no wax).

Here's my 4-footer:


Young Indy-ified Whip by inexorabletash, on Flickr

Turned out acceptably, since I was going for the "rustic" look. Definitely needs a more appropriate fall, though.

inexorabletash,

I've always had trouble dying falls. The last fall I dyed I ended up using "edge coat", however I don't recommend using that because it seals the fall much better than just dying the fall and you'll have a hard time getting leather dressing to penetrate it.

To get the beat up whitehide fall that's in the pictures of the Young Indy Bullwhips that I've seen I chose to use a Red Latigo fall (which is more brown than red to my eyes):

That seemed to give me a close enough look with having to deal with distressing a new whitehide fall.

Louie
http://bullwhips.org

kwad, thanks for the info on todd's whips. i currently own a 9' adam winrich whip which i love, but i've thought about getting a 10 ' to play around with. i'm interested in getting some other gear and don't want to sink major $$$ on another whip when i already have a really good one.

jlhampton