bullwhips

I was going to post some videos here of me cutting, paring / beveling and splitting by hand to show you don't need to buy any fancy tools to make dog leads, but for some reason this forum wasn't letting me post them. I put them up on my blog at http://bullwhips.org I hope they inspire someone to learn a new skill! Louie

You don't need to buy a splitter, just buy leather that's thin enough to start with. Once you start making more complex projects (say 8 plait or above) then splitting leather can come in handy. Also you can split by hand and get great results. Lately I've found that for smaller projects I prefer doing it this way. All I use is a box cutter and a bit of practice. The same goes for cutting and beveling, if you learn to do it by hand it cost you nothing and as a bonus you learn a skill.

Braiding Fine Leather is by David Morgan and has a great 8 plait dog lead pattern which could easily be adapted to a 4 or 6 plait. Here's a link to the book:http://amzn.to/wAkCUJ

You can split any leather down. However if you were to split a 3mm thick leather down to 1mm, in my experience it's not as strong as getting leather that came from the tannery in the 1mm range. If I was planning on doing 8 - 12 - 16 plait whips I wouldn't waste my time with latigo I'd stick to kangaroo. Unlike kangaroo where a skin makes about 1 whip (give or take) a side of latigo is an investment in somewhere between 3-6 whips depending on what you are making and how you are making it. So regardless of whether or not you end up liking latigo you've got a lot of it. I make a ton of 4 plait bullwhips from veg tanned cowhide that's about 1 mm thick. At that thickness it's thin enough so that you don't have to do any splitting and it allows you room inside to play with internal structure. Louie

You can make a bullwhip out of pretty much any leather. Veg tanned cowhide works for lower plait count whips. The project will determine the weight of the leather. You can make a 4 plait whip with a heavier leather, but if you plan on making a 24 plait whip you'll need something a bit lighter.

A great lace cutter that I think is very under rated because of its simplicity is the David Morgan Lace Cutter: http://www.davidmorgan.com/product_info.php?products_id=1139 For the rare occasion that I'm not free hand cutting this is what I use and I love it! I find it's much more comfortable to hold in the hand because of its size.

Horsehairbraider, I wish I could take credit for the plastic ring idea, but I got it from David Morgan: http://www.davidmorgan.com/product_info.php?products_id=1043 I picked up the D rings from David's shop in person...it's always good to have a reason to head up there and chat with them! Louie

In the past I've only done a couple of plaited belts and those where when I first started braiding. I made this one for myself and it's made with plastic D's because I'll be doing so traveling and don't want to deal with having to take off my belt when I go through metal detectors. There's a close up pic and more info on my thoughts when making it on my blog: http://bullwhips.org This plaited belt has me itching to make more stuff for myself!

I think my first tools for braiding leather were a $1 box cutter and a $1 yard stick. So for $2 you can get started...then if you can find some scrap leather you can probably get going for under $25! Those two tools are still my two main tools that I used today. Louie

I should have clarified a bit, my strands for plaiting were greased and didn't have a relaxation problem. However my bolsters which I don't normally grease until it's fitted had the stretch and relax problem. One way to try to "stabilize" a stretchy skin is to grease it. Filling the pores usually does the trick.

Joe, I found it a bit challenging to split because of the stretch. Some if it almost has a sponge like density, where it would stretch and thin out going through the splitter so virtually nothing would get removed, then relax going back to it's pre-trip through the splitter thickness. Louie

I've been meaning to post this for a while, but here's a veg tanned goat skin bullwhip I made a while ago: Like I posted earlier in my opinion it's not as nice as kangaroo and very stretchy, so cut wide! However the whip that I made with it is a solid whip. This was made with the veg tanned goat from Tandy which is dry, so I had to had stuff it with dressing before I plaited with it. Louie http://bullwhips.org

Veg tanned goat skin works for making a bullwhip. Here's one that I've got in the works right now: http://bullwhips.org/?p=4836 The thing to consider is that it's got a lot of stretch, so cut wide! In my opinion is it as good as kangaroo...nope. However it is cheaper. Louie http://bullwhips.org

I love my osborne #86 splitter: http://osborneleathertools.com/product_details.php?pid=33

Brian, The more flat braiding I do I"m staring to like the vice for...but I for the most part I live by my hook. Roo4u, The core is twisted rawhide with a cane center. Louie

Brian, It looks good! Have you ever tried plaiting from a hook in the wall? I love my hook, but sometimes a vice is nice too. Lilpep, Can you take a pic of the skin you got from Hardtke? Louie P.S. Here's what I did with a bit of two of the roo skins that just came in from Hardtke:

I just had three kangaroo skins come in from hardtke: The Black is 52 decimeters square, the red is 59 decimeters square and the natural tan is 49 decimeters square. So that you have a point of reference for the size of the kangaroo skins the dog .75 pup-imeters square. These has same small imperfections but all in all they are good skins...now to dream up a few projects to make.... Louie

The $15 from midwestwhips is without shipping. The advantage of getting from a whip maker instead of a leather supplier is they usually sort their skins by what a whip maker would want. Leather suppliers like Hardtke don't sort it the same way, you can request certain characteristics, but you don't know if you'll get them until it arrives. For example if you call Paul Nolan or David Morgan and say you want to make a six foot whip, they will sell you a great hide for that. If you call hardtke and say you want to make a six foot whip...they'll send you what they have (which isn't necessarily what you want). You can't beat hardtke on price...I order a ton from them, but never know exactly what I'm getting until it shows up. With Paul or David if I'm looking for skins to make a pair of whips I'll get two skins that will make a great pair of whips. So for me I use hardtke when I'm blindly ordering skins with no specific project in mind, and I order from a whip maker is I need skins for a specific project. I'm amazed that more people don't do or haven't done the math to figure out what things cost. To me that's a very big deal, if I"m paying a lot per square foot I want a skin that I"m not going to have to trim a lot off of, otherwise I'm throwing a way a lot of money. On the other hand if it's inexpensive I don't mind cutting out a bit more stretchy area. One more thing you always have to consider when figuring out your square foot cost is the exchange rate. For example right now the US dollar and the Australian dollar are almost even, so I'd buy from an US source right now. However a few months ago there was almost a 15% difference which would have been a better time to deal with an Australian source than right now. Louie

Brian, One of the cool things about getting roo from Paul is that he's in the Las Vegas area, so it's cheap to ship to us in Washington State and it's usually here the 2nd day! Louie

Brian, You know you can get the roo skins from Paul Nolan at www.midwestwhips.com for $15 a foot for veg tanned drum stuffed. He has a variety of suppliers and usually has roo from Packers...and I know he's had roo from Taubman in the past. So in the future you could save quite a bit of money getting it from Paul. Louie

I haven't messed around too much with croc ridge braiding. Louie

I didn't flatten or roll it, it came out soo nice and neat I didn't have to. This was made out of leftover kangaroo from making whips and it was centers of a pretty firm roo skin, so it was ultra prime lace! For the knot I thinned it down before I tied it. I"m very happy with how this turned out. Normally I do round braiding, however lately I've found the different patterns with flat braiding very interesting. Louie

I don't know if I have a "pattern" for going from round to flat. I basically put the two 8 plait end together and figured out the way that looked best and made the most sense. It doesn't need to be perfect because I put a turkshead over it. Louie

I don't do a lot of flat braiding, but here's a 16 plait bracelet. It's a two tone natural and brandy kangaroo. I think it came out pretty well. Louie

Here's the thing about having each plaited belly being a higher plait count than the one before it is if you are using a bolster you are negating any benefit the extra strands would give you. I think of a bolster as a 1 plait layer, so by going up each plaited layer internally your whip is 4 plait, 1 plait, 8 plait, 1 plait doesn't make sense. So why not just do them all boslters...well you can, you just can't play as much with density, weight and stiffness. Now if you use only plaited layers I can see how having higher plait count might make sense. At the end of the day I'm of the mindset that there is no ONE right way to make a whip (but there are a lot of wrong ways), so an article like yours is something I'd never attempt. I've got the way that's right for me...Bernie's whips aren't like mine, but they are right for him...etc Louie