Thor’s Hammer Bracelet

I found an example of one of these in an Encyclopedia Britannica when I was a teen. Thought it as pretty neat. Found in Iceland, from around the time “pagan” beliefs were giving way to Christian beliefs. It combined elements of both. A few years later I saw ... I think it was one of the members of Coil wearing one ... or maybe it was Current 93 ... or perhaps it was Douglas P. from Death in June. Can’t remember for sure. Then I found one somewhere.

It’s pretty much sat in a box for a few decades. Came across it and even though I’m not Icelandic, Christian or Asatru, decided to use it as a closure for a bracelet.

Hoodie Improvement

 New and improved Cottage 13 hoodie newly improved by replacing the boring shoelace draw string with purple paracord with button knots in the ends and the bland zipper pull replaced with lanyard knotted purple paracord. Which was then enhanced with a fish tail weave.

Paracord Needles

Made some paracord needles tonight.

For anything where you need to weave the running end through (finishing something off by burying the end, the snake knot, whipping, etc.), this is handy.

I found something on Instructables where the poster suggesting using brass rod and cutting it to length with a Dremel tool, then drilling out the rod with a drill press and then tapping the open end, and then shaping the tips with a grinder....yeah right! Take the path of least resistance.

I found some 5.5 mm knitting needles at a thrift shop for 25¢, took a hack saw, maybe ten strokes to cut each tip off, a rat tail and flat file to clean the ends up and voila. I really only needed one, but since my extravagant expenditure netted me two knitting needles, why not make two paracord needles out of them.

Hitchcraft: Button Knots

The lace on my Merrell Pulsates broke. 

Good thing I have a bin of parachute cord at my disposal. I had a choice of brown or desert camo. Went with the latter. 

I have no way of adding an aglet (what the little thing at the end of your laces is called - there to help get the lace through the eyelets and prevents the cotton most cheap laces are made from from unravelling.) 

I put a button knot on the end. My main interest was in preventing it from pulling back through the eyelet.

Crafty and jazzes them up a little bit.

Klever Kutter Karrier 2

I had one of the earlier models of this, and got a new model recently. Same basic idea, but it’s a bit bigger, so didn’t fit in the pouch I had made for the previous model.

Like the first one, I added a fob to help pull it out of the pouch / serve as a finger loop / identify it as mine.

Close up of the lanyard knot.

A co-worker liked what I had done and asked if I could put a neon green fob on. I only had about a foot of neon green paracord, that had already had the core taken out, which doesn’t really lend itself to doing the lanyard knot. So I put a spiral sinnet on instead.

The only webbing I had laying around that would fit was some 2.75" webbing. A bit wider than I wanted, but it was the quickest route to take. Not pretty, but it does the trick. (The previous version on the right.)

Being a bit wider, means I can also stick a pen in there.

Klever Kutter Karrier

A place I work at sometimes insists people use these “Klever Kutters” to open boxes. I thought it was silly, but whatever. 

It works I guess, although I did see people get injured by them. They flail away at pallet wrap with it, hit the pallet, the tip breaks off, they don’t notice and when they reach into their pocket to grab it, they slice a finger open. I’m of the mind set that how you use a tool is more an indicator of whether you’ll get injured by it rather than thinking that a safety feature will protect without fail. I’d rather someone with a clue uses whatever cutting tool they can manage safely, than think an 18 year knucklehead won’t manage to foolishly misuse a “fool-proof” gimmick. 

It worked all right for the number of times I used it, but the Spyderco Tenacious I carry could have done the job just as well and just as safely - because I use it safely.

I decided to make a little sheath for it.

Just used some seat belt webbing I had laying around. Folded it in 3 - one part forms the belt loop, one part forms the holder.

I put some seam tape at the ends. Sewn by hand on breaks one day.

Realized a limitation the first time I used it - with a belt loop that goes all the way to the bottom, pulling on the tool, pulls the sheath all the way up, and made it tough to get the tool back in.

Nothing a couple of stitches didn’t remedy.

And of course, I also added a lanyard, with two lanyard knots. I can pull it out of the sheath easier, and the loop is big enough to put two fingers through, meaning I could hang on to it while I used my fingers for other tasks.

Simple carrier for a little tool that works, but that I would never have spent my own money on by choice.

Hitchcraft – Kifaru Pullout Lanyard Knots

Now that I’ve figured out that the lanyard knot isn’t actually that hard to tie, I’ve been looking for excuses to put them in various spots. Going through stuff, I saw that I never switched out the loop of paracord tied in an overhand knot on the Kifaru Pullouts I have.

I have a small Pullout in 525D in all the colours they offer. The foliage green one got a UCP zipper pull, the coyote brown one got a desert camo zipper pull, and the olive drab one got a woodland camo zipper pull.

I’ve been liking thinner cord lately, but for doing the lanyard knot, the chunkier 550 cord is preferable to work with.

Hitchcraft – Microcord

When I first got into making sinnets and the like, I used 550 paracord. It’s what I had. But it is kind of bulky. The resulting fobs, zipper pulls and the like ended up a burly item. Which can be fine in certain instances, but I started playing around with thinner cord, and liked the results better. One in particular was Type 1 cord, but when I ordered it, the colour choices were very limited, and I only got OD and foliage green. I intended to order some more colour (now that the palette has increased) when next I put in an order.

While browsing around at the generally craptastic surplus store near me, I stumbled across a bunch of cord in different colours.

Atwood Micro Cord. Thinner than the type 1. For the price, what the heck, try out a few.

A not so great photo showing the difference in size between 550 cord, type 1 cord and micro cord.

I grabbed spools of black (which I think may actually be a very dark navy blue), dark grey, orange, purple and red.

One odd thing is that the purple and grey are fairly stiff, where as the other three are quite a bit more flexible.

A red and grey fob for my Victorinox Huntsman.

Purple zipper pulls on a purple fleece jacket. Nice and grippy.

Zipper pull on a pouch that holds all my cables.

Purple solomon bar over a light grey Spectra line core. With two lanyard knots at either end - the first time I’ve managed that one. The tutorials I had tried weren’t that clear, but finally found one that I could understand. That and a bit of perseverance.

That’s what I’ve done so far with this cord. I’m sure more will follow.