Monday, December 13, 2010

Flat Braided Lanyard...

I used the last of my dark brown leather cord for this one, cutting 3 six foot lengths of the 2mm round leather cord, the centers of the cords looped onto a snap hook, tying a lanyard knot with two pairs of the cord ends, pulling the third pair through the center of the knot before tightening.

I tied a 3 strand flat braid with the three pairs(6 ends) for about 18 inches(also shown in 'The Book of Decorative Knots' by Peter Owen), looping one pair around the Niteize S-Biner, and tying a lanyard knot with the other two pairs with the pair from the S-Biner up through the middle of that knot before tightening.

Then taking the pair from the S-Biner and one of the other pairs to tie a second lanyard knot, which secured the loop pair, with the remaining pair through the center of that knot. And finally tying a third lanyard knot with two pairs, then the remaining pair through the center of that knot, and trimmed/tucked all the ends.

This one may work for use as a wallet lanyard, or for a pocket knife, flashlight, multitool, or maybe a pocket watch...

Another flat braided lanyard tied with 2.4mm nylon cord, and used some doubled up snake knots on one end. The nifty little Victorinox Swiss Army Knife is an Orange Alox Rambler.

8 comments:

DonInAlabama said...

I have been trying to make a lanyard knot for such a long time looking at diagrams in a book I have and oh youtube with no luck at all. Until I watched the one you posted the link to in this post...got it the first time! Thanx!!!

Kris said...

First off - just found your blog, and as I've just gotten interested in knot tying, so glad I did! Amazing stuff!

But I'm having a hard time wrapping my brain (no pun intended) around this flat braided lanyard. It looks to me like the braid is made up of two, doubled strands - or 4 strands total. If it was braided from three, doubled strands - I would expect to see six strands total in the flat braid.

Stormdrane said...

@Kris, There are three doubled up lengths of cord(6 working ends)paired off for tying the flat braid. I used four of those ends(4 working ends) to tie the Lanyard knots and snake knots at the ends, around the other pair of cords. I took turns using the core pair so that all the pair(6 working ends) were used in those knots. Hope that makes sense. :)

Kris said...

It finally dawned on me, but thanks for your reply. I've gotten as far as the end of the braid, and now am just having trouble understanding how you finished off with the three lanyard knots. Are they tied in sequence from the braid toward the ring, or from the ring toward the braid? It seems like you would almost need to 'reverse' the direction of the lanyard knot? I get that one pair loops over the

Stormdrane said...

After braiding, the cords loop around the attachment, then two of the pairs are used to loosely tie a lanyard knot with enough room in the center to pull the whole braided length through the knot. Also pull the other pair of strands through the knot, then tighten up the knot. You're tying the lanyard knots back up towards the braid.

Now with the odd pair of strands and one of the other pair, tie another loose lanyard knot and pull the rest through it like the first time, etc...

All of the pairs have been used with making the knots, so there's no worry of them being unsecured.

Kris said...

The thing that was hanging me up was reversing the lanyard knot. Took me awhile to 1) realized I had to pull the existing, partial lanyard back through the knot to get it to travel in the right direction and 2) figure out the best way to start the knot to accomplish this.

I ended up doing the sequence a little different - tying one lanyard knot with two pairs and the third up the middle (towards the finish end) to secure the braid, one reversed lanyard knot, incorporating the pair that when through the middle of the last one, to make the loop and one final knot - in the original direction (or reversed again...however you want to think about it) so that it finished with the leftover ends facing out - which seemed like it would be easier to trim.

Thanks again for your help and the great blog! Keep 'em coming!

Unknown said...

I stared at the diagram of a flat braid for a while trying to figure out how it was different from an ordinary everyday braid and couldn't see a difference. Is there a difference?

Stormdrane said...

@Unknown, It's a typical 3 strand braid, but depending on the cord you use, you can get a round shape to the braid or flat...