AUTHOR: Louie Foxx DATE: 8:23 AM ----- BODY:

Well, now that the whole second stockwhip is behind me ( I still haven't redone the handle, I don't have any wood right now ), I've started on a bull whip. This will be my second bull whip.

I think I figured out what I was doing wrong when I was cutting the strands for my whips. I was cutting from the end towards where the handle would go. What I am doing now is cutting them from the handle outwards. I only cut a little bit, then do the next strand, so I'm kinda inching my way down the side of leather. This lets me do my tapering at the same points instead of guessing where to start tapering at.

The belly of this bullwhip is nice and tight. The core is cowhide, I cut a piece, scored it with a utility knife, lubed it up and rolled it. Then the bolster is made of pigskin, somewhere along the line I ended up with a piece if pigskin, so I used that. The belly plaiting is cowhide.

My next step is to start the handle of the bull whip. I've been reading a lot of things on the internet as to what to us for the handle, and i'm not sure what route I'm going to take.

I read somewhere that I can use a short lenght of metal pipe for the handle. I may try this, but it needs to be filled with shot, and I don't have any lead shot laying around.

We'll see what happens when I get to it.

Louie

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