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Posted

Thanks again, Karol and Joe. Your advice is much appreciated!

I am thinking of trying a side of Hermann Oak veg tanned tooling leather 3-4oz and see how that goes. When you are making cowhide whips do you still try to get two braided bellies and bolsters (as necessary for thickness)?

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Do you plan on using a shot bag? If so your finished whip might be very thick using 3-4 oz. That is 9-12 oz thickness of leather braided tight not including core material. That will make for a very small diameter core. Remember a whip is supposed to be supple once broken in.

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When plaiting in cowhide I use to make core - with steel spike and leather core, than 4 plait belly, bolster and top plait. Diameter of a whip is around 22-23 mm. If I will use a shot bag it will be little bit thicker :)

Mr. Joe - do you stretch cow hide beacuse you check if it broke? Or you have such stretchy leather? From my experience roo hide is much more stretchy then cow - that is why I'm asking.

There is nothing impossible. There are things that just need a little bit more commitment.

Kiscienwhips.com - my site. Still in progress...

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Posted (edited)

I stretch all my hide I plait with. Like Pete I cant always afford to use roo so I have experimented with other hides. The biggest determining factor for stretch I have found is where the strand comes from. A strand from the shoulders has almost no stretch while a strand from the belly is can stretch by 1/3. I split my strands to .8-1.3 mm. Roo happens to be about that thickness. Cow needs to be split to that. taking a strand from each animal the same size cut from the same area (shoulder/back) the roo stretches less. from the belly the roo seems to stretch more. Since I have only used roo a few times and they were female, I assumed the roo belly stretch had something to do with it being marsupial. I am far from an expert and didnt stay at a Holiday Inn last night, these were just my findings with the hides I have used.

Edit- I try to keep my whips at 20-22 mm. I prefer the Aussie thin whips to the American 25mm thick ones.

Edited by Joe M
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Posted

Do you plan on using a shot bag? If so your finished whip might be very thick using 3-4 oz. That is 9-12 oz thickness of leather braided tight not including core material. That will make for a very small diameter core. Remember a whip is supposed to be supple once broken in.

No, I am not using a shot bag at this time. However, I did some calculations last night and you are right. I think that 3-4 oz might be too thick. I have a 2-3 oz hide from Tandy (tooling veg tanned) that I have been using for bolsters. I cut a test strand and split it to the thinnest part of the strand. It came out to about 1mm. I use a hand splitter from Dene Williams and it does a really good job splitting the strands. The strand that I cut, stretched and split seemed pretty strong. I will see if I can find a 2-3oz hide somewhere.

Next question, have you dyed your own strands before? Just curious how that works. I can't seem to find hides in different colors very often (especially thin hides around 2-3 oz).

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Posted

I dyed. It works preety nice :) You simply have to remember to put some finisher on.

There is nothing impossible. There are things that just need a little bit more commitment.

Kiscienwhips.com - my site. Still in progress...

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Posted

I have seen that splitter, I opted for one that would have the capacity for bellies also and have a keystone. If you are interested in beveling your strands, I have a pic of my homemade sizer/beveler in my gallery. Feel free to copy it, I did.

For black on veg tanned I use vinegroon before cutting. I havent really played with other colors but when I try it I will probably make a batch of rit alcohol based dye and soak the strands before greasing and stretching. My thought is that the strand will allow the dye to soak in more thoroughly. Downside is that after stretching it might produce lighter color. Greasing may darken the color afterwards. Just another reason to use strands from the same section of hide.

@Kiscien I checked out your website. That is some fine work. I work in paracord as well as leather. Unfortunately I have higher demand for the paracord whips so get little time to perfect my leather plaiting. bawling.gif

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Posted

I have seen that splitter, I opted for one that would have the capacity for bellies also and have a keystone. If you are interested in beveling your strands, I have a pic of my homemade sizer/beveler in my gallery. Feel free to copy it, I did.

For black on veg tanned I use vinegroon before cutting. I havent really played with other colors but when I try it I will probably make a batch of rit alcohol based dye and soak the strands before greasing and stretching. My thought is that the strand will allow the dye to soak in more thoroughly. Downside is that after stretching it might produce lighter color. Greasing may darken the color afterwards. Just another reason to use strands from the same section of hide.

@Kiscien I checked out your website. That is some fine work. I work in paracord as well as leather. Unfortunately I have higher demand for the paracord whips so get little time to perfect my leather plaiting. bawling.gif

Funny you mention the sizer/beveler. I made one this weekend! Can't wait to use it on the overlay for the whip I am working on now.

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Posted

@Kiscien I checked out your website. That is some fine work. I work in paracord as well as leather. Unfortunately I have higher demand for the paracord whips so get little time to perfect my leather plaiting. bawling.gif

Thanks :). I'm still translating it. I made few paracord whips for now, but I plait in leather.

There is nothing impossible. There are things that just need a little bit more commitment.

Kiscienwhips.com - my site. Still in progress...

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