iUnique Ropecraft: January 2012

Monday, January 30, 2012

WIDE COBBLED SOLOMON BAR

For this post I thought I would show one of the knots that I have been working on recently. JD at TyingItAllTogether created the original version of this knot and published a video on the tying technique. The original design is great, but when I started fiddling with a few strands of cord the other day I thought I would see how it looked in a "wide" form. I am labeling this knot as a prototype because I don't know how useful folks will find the design since it is wider than most lanyard knot designs. With your feedback I will determine if a tutorial should be made.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

HOW TO TIE THE DIAMOND BRAID STITCH

If you have noticed the scrolling marquee, I stated that changes are coming to my blog. From this point forward, almost every knot design that I post will be accompanied by a tutorial that will show how I tied the knot. I will only be adding a tutorial if the knot meets the following criteria:

- If there are no tutorials for the knot freely available online. - If the tutorial(s) that are available aren’t clear or I feel that I can add something to make it easier to tie the design.

The first tutorial is a four strand braid and you can find tutorials for this design online, but I found that they could be easier to explain. I know that this braid is called many different names, but since I am going to try and better the tutorial from the BoondoggleMan, I will keep the name that he gave it.

DOWNLOAD THE TUTORIAL

With every tutorial that I add, I will provide a link to download the tutorial so that you will be able to store each tutorial on your computer for future use. To view the tutorials on your computer, you will need Adobe Reader which is available for free download.

Download the tutorial (right-click the hyperlink and select Save Link As… and then save it to your hard drive location).

Download the tutorial image (right-click the hyperlink and select Save Link As… and then save it to your hard drive location).

CORD USED

You need four strands of cord to tie this knot; you can use two strands by splitting the strands in the middle which is the way the tutorial will show.

CORD RATIO

If splitting the cord as shown in the tutorial, 3 inches of cord will result in 1 inch of finished cord (3” per every inch needed).

Click on the image to view the original size.

I tied approximately thirty inches of the DiamondBraid Stitch and then connected the two ends together with a knot that I covered up with a HeadHunter’s Knot and then I tied a Knife Lanyard Knot that connects to Monkey’sFist that is wrapped around a regular Table Tennis (ping pong) ball. The total amount of cord used to tie the Monkey’s Fist Lanyard was about 18 feet of Panda Camo and about 9 feet of White paracord.

SOURCES AND REFERENCES

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

UNIQUE CRIMSON TIDE PARACORD GEAR III

I have been working on this post since receiving my new "Panda Camo" paracord from Supply Captain a couple of weeks ago. I wanted to publish the designs prior to Alabama winning the BCS National Championship, but once they won I’ve been celebrating and haven’t had time until now. For those who don’t understand why I am using this color paracord to tie Alabama-themed designs, I will explain. One of the greatest coaches in Alabama history often wore a houndstooth hat and I believe that this color is a great match for that design.

For those who don’t follow or care about football, I hope you will still find this post useful.

There are several designs in this post, some of which I have tied before and some new and different styles.

You’ll notice that I included another Chinese Good Luck Knot necklace, but for good reason. Prior to the Championship game starting, my stomach was in knots and I needed to find some way to ease my mind. That’s when I thought about the Good Luck Talisman I tied for my rear view mirror, if it can bring luck I figured why not give a try. I modified the end result slightly by introducing another strand to the center of the knot. To make a long story short, I wore the necklace for the entire game and I don’t know if it helped, but the other team didn’t score a point. Needless to say, for every future Alabama game, the Good Luck Knot necklace will be around my neck.

You may want to tie one of these in your favorite team’s colors and see if the luck will extend to you as well.


Chinese Good Luck Knot Necklace

One of the new designs is called the Four Lead Diamond Knot; I tied it from instructions in the Ashley Book of Knots (#790). If you don’t own the book, Amazon offers a preview of the book that includes the instructions located on page 142 (another link in Google Books is available in the Sources and References section).

Four Lead Diamond Knot (ABoK #790)

The other new design was tied using several knots; I started with a Crown Sinnet, a.k.a. the Square Stitch. I then added a four strand Matthew Walker Knot over the Crown Sinnet. Continuing down, I tied a Round Crown Sinnet, a.k.a. Circle Stitch. Near the middle, I tied a Two Pass Head Hunter’s Knot, which I thought was appropriately named to add to a football team fob. On both ends of the Head Hunter’s Knot, I tied a Wall Knot. I continued tying a Round Crown Sinnet until I reached the desired length and then I finished it off with another four strand Matthew Walker Knot.


The "Head Hunter" Key Fob

The other two designs are from TyingItAllTogether, the Stitched Solomon Bar and the Wide Zipper Sinnet.

Wide Zipper Sinnet

Stitched Solomon Bar Bracelet with White Curved Side Release Buckle

SOURCES AND REFERENCES

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

UNIQUE PARACORD KNIFE WRAP

On my last hunting trip while navigating to the tree stand, I ended up dripping with sweat in 30° F weather. It occurred to me that I needed to lighten my load so that on future trips I won’t be freezing once I get settled in the stand from the amount of perspiration on my clothing.

An easy way to lose a little weight is to change my hunting knife. I am a lifelong fan of Buck knives, these are well made with good quality materials and they won’t break the bank. That’s when I decided to purchase the Buck PakLite Skinner which looks like the popular Esee Izula knives, but about forty dollars cheaper.

I did my research prior to choosing the Bug Belly Bar, I found many knives wrapped in paracord, but most used the same designs (a weave, Turk’s Head Knots, or the basic “Izula wrap”). I liked many of the designs and I favored a Turk’s Head Knot wrap, but that seemed to be too fancy for my intended use. That’s when I thought of the Bug Belly Bar, it has the weave and attitude that I was going for.

I tied the wrap using about six feet of olive drab paracord for the Bug Belly Bar wrap. I wanted to add a little pizzazz to finish off the knife so I added a lanyard. I tied the lanyard using about two feet of acu digital paracord; I added a Square Knot (a.k.a. Cross Knot, Rustler’s Knot, or the Friendship Knot) for the loop, a Matthew Walker Knot in the middle and finished it off with an Arms-Akimbo Lanyard Knot.

There are many different styles of wraps that you can choose from on the internet, but if you think out-of-the-box just a little bit, you can end up with a better – more customized wrap.

SOURCES AND LINKS

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