Making A Bullwhip

by Khoke and Ida Livingston of Davis City, IA

Several years ago, Khoke was moving a herd of beef cattle from one pasture to another on horseback. Cattle normally defer to horses, but on this particular occasion, a cow displaying an excessive amount of post-partum aggression took on both horse and man. The cow lifted and threw the horse and her seated rider.

Thankfully, neither the horse nor Khoke were injured. The incident, however, left a distinct impression upon both. The horse became afraid of cows and Khoke decided to learn a language that even aggressive cattle would understand and respect. He began to braid a whip.

Whip #1

This first bullwhip had a nylon core for flexibility and a braided rawhide cover for strength. A difficulty came from the fact that a bullwhip needs to taper but a nylon rope does not. So Khoke took nylon rope and cordage of different diameters, cut them into short lengths and melted the ends together to connect them. This was the core. Over the core, he braided strips of wet deer rawhide and ended up with a 16 ft long bullwhip.

This whip worked for a while. It was handy for those moments when a bull wanted to hang out with the ladies in a neighbor’s pasture and refused to go home cooperatively. Sometimes they would run into the woods that were too thick for a horse and rider to follow. A person on foot sometimes needs to add emphasis to the need for relocation in order to get cooperation.

This whip did not live nearly as long as Khoke hoped it would. The nylon core began to break where it had been melted together. This interrupted the energy transfer and disabled the bullwhip.

How does a bullwhip pop?

A bullwhip can come in many lengths. However, they all share a few principles. They must taper from the handle to the tip, and they must be flexible yet strong. The taper and length causes an energy transfer from the handle to the tip. When a deft striking motion is made at the handle, this motion sends energy down the length of the braided leather, gaining speed as the braid tapers to the tip, and then strikes at up to 30 times the speed the handle originally snapped and double the speed of sound.¹ The crack of a bullwhip is actually a sonic boom. Khoke’s whip can sound like a gunshot.

¹ True Cause of Whip’s Crack Uncovered https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/true-cause-of-whips-crack/

In the Face of Objections

There are those who object to the use of a bull whip. There are good reasons for this. It is certainly an instrument easily abused. At the same time it can be a life saving tool, both directly and indirectly.

There is a reason why it is called a bull whip. Bulls are dangerous, even the docile ones. “Docile” bulls have probably killed as many or more people than aggressive ones. Everyone knows to be cautious around something aggressive. The docile bulls are too easily trusted and when they snap for some unknown reason, they can and have killed people. Never trust a bull. Statistics are fed by this mistake.

Aside from their temperamental nature, bulls are strong, pound for pound much stronger than a horse. Horses work faster than oxen but don’t let that fool you into thinking that cattle are slow. Cattle can run 15-25 mph, most humans run between 6-12 mph, it takes a measure of fitness to exceed that. The fastest known human, Usain Bolt, can reach 27 mph. Just getting to the other side of the fence is not necessarily safe enough either because a bull can charge through or jump over. We have a couple sway-backed gates where a bull (or cow) had taken the leap and planted a belly flop on them.

A bull out of control will go through fences, even good ones. They may lose a little hide going through a good barbed wire fence, but then, they have plenty of hide to spare. A tough old bull will have places where his hide (skin) is nearly an inch thick.

Standard operating procedure for fully out of control bulls is to shoot them. Bulls can flip vehicles and wagons. My father had a bull named Toby that flipped a wagon end over end across a pasture. If a bull cannot be contained and is damaging property or threatening people, it usually ends with a bullet.

Samson

We had a large Brown Swiss bull with a handsome spread of horns for several years. Samson was around 2000+ lbs toward the end of his career. We shared him with our neighbors and he contributed to many handsome calves in our dot on the map.

Sooner than we wanted to be free of his services, a neighbor came by to tell us that Samson had begun displaying aggression toward people. We had noticed some increasing boldness but no open aggression before this. This neighbor had unrolled a round bale down a hill in a pasture, the rolling bale looked like it was “running away” from Samson and excited him. After this he began demonstrating threatening behavior towards people. This is usually a career killer.

Khoke took his whip and our dogs, Silas and Ruby, to the pasture where Samson was to evaluate the report. Sure enough, Samson wanted to try to take him. Khoke tried the dogs first, our Blue Heelers are excellent cattle dogs. Though they temporarily detained Samson, he shook them off.

Samson refixed his attention on Khoke in the open pasture and when Samson came after him again, Khoke called off the dogs and let him taste the whip. The bullwhip was very persuasive and after a short session with it Sammy turned on his heels. After this attitude adjustment, Samson’s respect for humanity returned and he contributed to the farmstead dairies nearby for another 4 years until he was retired.

In this example, not only did the whip protect Khoke, but it was also a tool that lengthened Samson’s life. Had we no means to adjust his attitude, he would have been butchered that year. He only ever had one brief session with the bullwhip and we never had a problem with him again.

*Please note that one should never attempt to correct a bulls’ attitude with a bullwhip without being very comfortable (skilled at) using a bullwhip.

One always needs a backup plan. A whip only inflicts pain, (welts, rarely more on a bull). This is only a psychological barrier, not a physical one. If the bull were to disregard this, you would need to know what you are going to do to be safe. Aside from his dogs as back-up, Khoke is also fleet of foot and confident in his abilities. My own confidence would have to rely on a nearby large tree. I have had to play ring-around-the-rosie with a bull before.

Whip #2

When Khoke’s first whip ceased to be useful, he ended up going 3-4 years without one. They take some time and preparation to make and he had to come up with a better idea for the core. In the meantime he was very busy and like a roof that only leaks when it rains, the infrequent need for the whip found its creation delayed.

Yet for those times it was needed, its necessity grew with each frustration. He missed the coil of persuasion that had kept company with his saddle. As a wiser person than myself once said, “when the pain of staying the same outweighs the pain of changing, one will change.” One day Khoke came home having had enough, he assembled the materials to make another bullwhip.

This time he used smoked brain-tanned deer hide, cut into tapered strips and braided into a round 4-braid to make the core. There is a good description of how to brain-tan leather in issue 44-3 (Brain Tanning Hides by Ken Gies). One could use deer, goat, or calf hide for this with comparable results.

Khoke has tanned many hides over the years and he realized the brain-tanned leather core would offer strength yet flexibility and the smoked hide adds its inevitable need for water-proofing. Don’t undersmoke the hide: it will return to rawhide if it gets wet at all. Smoking a hide well waterproofs and preserves it.

The brain-tanned and smoked tapered leather strips were braided from the handle to the tip. Then Khoke soaked some rawhide in our pond for a couple days to soak up. Once fully reconstituted, he cut it into tapered strips too. These needed to be significantly longer than the brain-tanned leather strips as the rawhide was going to be braided over the other and would take more length to do so.

The rawhide was braided wet and was 4-braided over the tanned leather from handle to tip. The overall length for this whip was 20ft. Khoke wanted a bullwhip that was long enough to be effective on horseback. We can all take a moment to reflect on how good a horse Millie is to put up with that.

The Chase

We have about 100 head of Angus cattle. In early summer we move the bulls in with the cows so the cows are ready to calve by mid-spring of the following year. In August, the bulls need to be moved out of the herd. This gives us a finite calving season and the bulls a chance to rest.

Naturally the bulls object to parting company with all the pretty ladies. They don’t go into solitary confinement but they do get moved into a pasture with dairy cows that are already bred. Cutting the bulls from the herd can be quite a difficult task when they don’t want to cooperate.

My neighbor dropped in one day to tell a story on Khoke. Laughing, she said she was driving to town when all of a sudden a great big Angus bull crashed through the fence on the north side of the road, crossing in front of her, almost hitting her car. Then he paced the fence on the south side of the road looking for a good place to go through there.

Meanwhile, she sees Khoke galloping out a gate a few hundred yards away. He came tearing down the road on his horse, undoing the whip from its catch on his saddle and shaking it loose as he came. Seeing him come, the bull ran around the west corner of the pasture and cleared the fence as he went over. Khoke was on his heels so close that he threw the reins over a post and launched himself over the fence in one motion, nearly landing on the bull. He finished the pursuit on foot with the bull eventually ending up in the correct pasture.

Whip #3

The long whip was great, it worked well when it was needed as it had the power of persuasion even at a distance. On the infrequent occasion that it needed to persuade, it usually only had to bark, not bite. Khoke rarely ever had to actually touch an animal with it.

Someone stopped in to let us know that our beef herd was out of its pasture. Khoke went to investigate and sure enough, they were scattered through two other fields. Beginning at the nearer field he snapped his whip to announce his arrival and began rounding up the cows. To his surprise, the cattle in the next field who heard the crack of the whip as well, all began to move toward the pasture they came from as well. They knew where they belonged and that it was time to return even though they did not yet see Khoke.

For as useful as its length is, it also came with challenges. Cracking a 20 ft bullwhip takes a bit of space and Khoke did not always have that luxury. It was difficult to use in a wooded area and Khoke found himself in want of a shorter whip. The material assembly day for this followed another exchange with a difficult bull who was trying to hasten his journey to burgers. So Khoke came in one day and began preparing the material for a 10ft whip.

Steps

#1) Khoke originally tried to use basswood for the handle but the wood was too soft and broke every time he tried to put the ferrule on, so he made the handle from walnut as it is stronger. The handle was made by putting the walnut wood blank on the lathe and shaving it down to a tapered 11-inch long handle that fit comfortably in his hand. He also lathed a small groove above where the ferrule would be so that he could tie off the leather and braid over the ferrule.

The ferrule was made from cutting a 3 inch piece from a bicycle brace. This was hollow and had the same diameter as the braided leather inner cord would be.

#2) Out of a smoked brain-tanned hide, Khoke cut 4 tapered strips. These were ¾ inch wide that tapered down to ¼-? th of an inch at the ends. He used a 7×9 rectangular piece of leather per strip, trimming the corners to make it oval and then cut each into a tapering strip.

#3) Taking the strips he fed them through the ferrule and then pounded the ferrule onto the end of the handle being careful not to cut or damage the leather.

#4) Once the ferrule was in place, Khoke drilled holes and “riveted” it in place by pounding in roofing nails.

#5) Khoke began braiding down the handle with a 4-braid, braiding out of the ferrule all the way to the tip. He had to fold the strips and tie them in little bundles to make it easier to keep the lengths of leather from tangling as he worked.

#6) Then Khoke cut out 4 more tapered leather strips that were not quite as long. These were tied off above the ferrule and then back-braided down the handle over the ferrule and over the inner core for about a foot of length. This was to strengthen the core. The core flexes so much at the end of the ferrule that Khoke was concerned that it would wear out the leather there too quickly. The extra braided layer was to give it some support where it would be weakest.

#7) Khoke soaked a rawhide in the pond for a couple days to reconstitute it. Then he scraped it to break the fibers loose on his de-fleshing beam. Next he stretched the rawhide to make it more supple and workable. It needs to be able to stretch because if it can’t stretch then it can’t shrink. The rawhide cover strengthens the whip as it dries and shrinks on the core.

#8) A 6-inch rawhide sleeve was stitched for added strength and support where the core meets the ferrule. The stitching was done with synthetic sinew as it does not break.

#9) Next, the tapered rawhide strips were cut. Starting with a 8×12 rectangle* per strip he began cutting the strips at 1-¼ inch wide and ending at about ¼ inch wide at the ends. These had to be kept wet so as they were cut they were put into a jar of water.

#10) The strips were tied off at the top of the handle laying away from the core so that once it was tied off it could be folded down to braid down the handle, covering the ferrule again as it braided on down the length of the whip.

#11) Once the length of the whip was braided, Khoke wrapped the last few inches of the whip tightly with the synthetic sinew, folding the tip around to make a loop and wrapping it again.

#12) This loop held a length of boot lace that Khoke tied there to make a popper at the end of the whip.

*In hindsight Khoke would have cut the rawhide from a 12×12 square. The 8×12’s did not make quite long enough strips to cover the core and he had to cut some extra rawhide lengths to splice into the braid.

Beware of the Learning Curve

Often the one who suffers the most from the bullwhip is the one who is learning to use it. The initial practices from an inexperienced wielder leaves them with welts. A really good snap on our sensitive human skin will leave more than a welt.

Give anyone practicing their aim a wide berth as the the snap you have to watch the most is the back snap. Most beginners are not thinking of where the whip swings when they draw it back, and that one can get a bystander. Once you are good at using the whip you can aim with incredible accuracy. Khoke would test his accuracy by snapping carpenter bees out of the air. Practice is necessary and the novice benefits by having the skin well covered with heavy duty material and safety glasses, either this or high pain tolerance and you might need that anyway.