Inside Adam Savage's Cave: Indiana Jones Bullwhip

Adam shows off the Raiders of the Lost Ark bullwhip he braided by hand. Learn why it was such a labor of love to make this whip from a single piece of kangaroo hide, and how this whip is a little different than the one Indiana Jones uses in the movies.

[gregm.]

Adam....years ago right after the first Indy movie I also turned this craft into the Holy Grail search. I was living in the Seattle area at the time and David Morgan had a shop in Ballard before he moved to Bothell. I spoke with him on the phone and he invited me down to his shop. I spent the next 2 days with him as he showed me how he hand cut (free form) those plaits without drawing them. We spent a lot of time just talking about the world while we worked on my whip. David was a metallurgist in his work life as was my father so we had that in common. He was a very gracious and soft spoken man and considering his importance to Hollywood he was humble as could be. He educated me on Lash Larue and told me a lot about the whips he made for numerous movies. BTW, he told me that the whip in the first Indy movie was actually 10' long, and since i wanted a duplicate that is how long my whip is. He charged me $200 for my whip and nothing for his time and friendship. I still have that whip after almost 40 years and will give it to my grandson but what is special is David's kindness and my memory of him.

[PaynE_PaynE]

I just love how enthusiastic Adam is about this bullwhip. Allthough understandable!!

[Pahiro]

Makes me so happy when Adam puts so much effort into something and comes up with such a beautiful final product.

[NoPrObLeM]

i love how Adam is so positive about everything, zero negativity.

[lady]

When my hair is braided I can crack it like a whip, but I've noticed that one's whip cracking technique requires a lot of adjustment between braid types. I can crack a regular three stranded braid, but I'm having trouble with a fishtail braid which more closely resembles an actual whip. I am reasonably amazed by Mr. Adam's whip braiding skills.

[grimreaper]

9 MINUTES OF VIDEO, A CLAIM THAT IT SOUNDS LIKE A GUNSHOT, AND YOU NEVER CRACK IT?!

[loodydove]

I always found it ironic that Indi is scared of snakes but his main tool is so similar to a snake.

[hetmasteen]

My favorite new thing to watch on Youtube these days. Keep 'em coming, boys!

[jamesmellors]

Logged in just to thumb this up. Couldn't agree more. The look on his face when he's doing the intro... I'd pay to have that job and just listen to Adam talk.

[Legoweapond]

What a tease you didn't whip it, I'd like to hear the sound of it

[jedichase]

Awesome video, I've wanted to see Adam's self-made whip for a while now.

I've been cracking whips now for 4 years, and have done some performing with them.
Down here in Florida most whips are made of nylon and range in the 12ft. length. They are more limited in the tricks you can do, but like Adam said they are loud.

[weplaydthis]

Credit where credit is due. A lot of what Adam does is half-assed, but that whip is very well made and THAT is a real art. Well done.

[collinstphillip]

Adam, sir. What a beautiful reliving of your whip making experience, thank you.
That being said, you don’t think any of us, mega-fan or casual viewer, sat through your entire story, truly enjoyable as it was, just for the tale, do you? ONE CRACK! You couldn’t swing that thing, that freak, just once? Frankly, sir, you owe us. All due respect. Pay up. One 45 second long clip. 10 second into, set, swing, bumble it once, slim your eyes and set your jaw and CRACK. Do it. Thanks.
Big fan. BIG

[Thea_MojaveOutliersWhipmakers]

Actually, he said it took him about 17 hours to make the whip, 6 of which were spent just DRAWING on the hide where he intended to cut the lace.  That's still pretty damned fast.  But!  The man has VAST EXPERIENCE dealing with finicky engineering projects of every description under sharp time constraints, and probably has a Man Cave that would make a super villain green with envy, never mind access to a practically endless supply of tools, material and advice from being hooked in to the collaborative community he works in.  Too, clearly he's an uber-nerd of epic proportions--a savant with social skills, eh? lol!  So, while it is amazingly cool that he did this as fast and as well as he did, it's not at all unlikely or even that surprising.

Nice build, Mr. Savage.  :)  I'd love to see your 7oz latigo whip...bet THAT was a fun build!

[BTeamHooligan]

There were some in the movie that were up to 12 I believe. They may have been some of the stunt whips for swinging. He makes a big deal about it being 11 feet, but I have a 10 Australian roo hide and I actually prefer it to shorter whips. The shorter whips are faster to crack. But the long ones are extremely loud. You just have to have good technique for longer whips. They're less forgiving, and more likely to bite you if your not careful.

[tr]

It's a beautiful whip. With art you need 2 things, money and dedication. Supplies can be expensive, but so can a finished product. Sometimes you can go halfway and find something started, and you can finish it yourself and put your personality into it. Sometimes dedication can more than make up for the lack of money if you know where to look and have a little ingenuity. Or if you are rich you can forget dedication, pay for someone else's work entirely.

[fantasyprops]

Hat off to you, no pun intended, that must have been an insanely fiddly build. 6 hours of marking and then 2 hours cutting and no mistakes. yikes!!! well done Adam

[greenXXV]

does anybody know if he ever cracked the whip on this channel? That i really want to see. 

[DavidMorganLLC]

We really enjoyed this video. We had lost the information if we ever had it that Adam drew the sets out on the skin.

[thethe]

Great whip. It looks a little chunky. The Raiders Bullwhips were a lot thinner. Most people think that David Morgan made the original hero versions whips, for the first movie. But in fact the whips x 3 of different lengths, actually belonged to a stunt man, that was a hot shot at the bullwhip and schooled Ford on the pre production film set. No body can say who made them for sure, but they definitely were made, before David Morgan was brought in. David Morgan was hired during production of Raiders to recreate the 3 original whips, so they could use them for stunts like swinging over chasms and such. David Morgan continued making the whips and improving on the original 3 for the next 3 movies that followed. Morgan made them a little thicker than the original 3 movie prototype's, but not quite a fat as this one. This one is over done. Adams OCD may have some part to play in that LOL.