New Pewter Skull Bead...

I received a couple of Green Girl Studios pewter skull beads from BladeOps.com.

For one skull, I used a two foot length of gutted paracord, making two-strand wall knots(ABoK knot #775)in a series. I think it gives the lanyard/fob a look of vertebrae coming down from the skull...

For the other skull, I used some 1.4mm nylon cord to make a four strand round braid, added the skull bead, then finished with a Matthew Walker knot, shown used as a zipper pull on my backpack.

The hole on the skull bead is 1/8" diameter, so it can fit up to a single strand of ungutted 550 paracord. To be able to pull a loop of gutted paracord through the hole, it needed to be slightly enlarged. I used a 9/64" drill bit, manually screwing the skull down over the bit, so that it cut out a small amount of the pewter material. I used a diamond file/sharpener to smooth out any sharp edges, and that was just what was needed to snugly fit a couple of gutted paracord strands through the bead.

The skull's eye holes also look good for adding some glow-in-the-dark powder and epoxy mix, and then they'll be ready for lanyard/fob/zipper pull/pendant duty...

Paracord Guitar Pick Holder...

One of my blog readers asked me to make something for holding a guitar pick with paracord. I did have one guitar pick handy, once having a guitar, but gave it away years ago because I couldn't play it to save my life.

I used a basic three lead turks head knot that's commonly used for sailor bracelets, and in smaller cord or wire with jewelry for holding stones, coins, etc... I have tried this in the past with holding challenge coins, but didn't like how it covered up too much of the coin, but it works well enough to hold guitar picks. YMMV

Using a 6 foot length of paracord, starting the knot around 18" from one end of the cord, I tied it around a wine cork making the knot into eight bights and following it around again for a second pass, careful that it's not too tight around the cork, being somewhat loose so a pick will fit. The start and end strands can be equaled out by working slack through the knot in either direction. The neck cords can be trimmed to make the necklace to a shorter length, or worked down into lanyard or key chain fob...

The knot is slid off the cork and the triangular shaped guitar pick is worked into the center of the knot, placing the top side of the pick in where the neck cords come out, shape the knot down around the bottom of the pick as you work it into the knot.

A safety break-away was added for necklace use, since we all know that rabid fans and groupies will grab and rip at your clothes. You don't want to get strangled coming off the stage after your band rocks the house, lol...

The guitar pick is a snug fit in the center of the knot and will not accidentally fall out. The knot is actually thick/wide enough with two passes, to hold several guitar picks at once, so you can toss a few into the crowd as souvenirs while your band is playing a set...

Other knots that have been suggested to try as a holder, are the Spanish ring knot and the single strand star knot.

Blade Show booty...

The 30th Anniversary Blade Show & International Cutlery Fair was in Atlanta last week, at the Cobb Galleria Centre. I spent all day Friday looking at the vast array of assorted handmade and production versions of sharpened items(knives, daggers, swords, hatchets, tomahawks, etc...) and chatting with some of the folks I know from various online forums that were also there. Some I've known for several years and others I met for the first time. It was a good thing the show ended on Sunday, as zombies showed up nearby the following Monday morning, lol...

I didn't come home from the show empty handed this year. I bought a new olive drab Tru-Spec boonie hat from Advanced Outfitters, got a Numyth Vulcan Fire Piston from Going Gear, and received a Victorinox Green Alox Minichamp from Swissbianco.

I've yet to add some paracord to the boonie hat, but will eventually put some on it after I wash the hat a few times to shrink it up first, with it being 100% ripstop cotton.

I added a four bight turks head knot to the Vulcan fire piston, and you can see how the fire piston works from Going Gear's YouTube video demonstration. Fire pistons, also called fire syringes, have been around a long time as a fire starting method, and the Vulcan is a pretty neat modernized engineering feat of a tool.

And I made a two bight turks head knot paracord firesteel pendant/fob/lanyard/zipper pull, shown attached to the Minichamp. A 1/8" x 2" firesteel fits right inside gutted paracord, as shown in a previous blog post from last year. The small sized firesteels can also be found at Going Gear.

I was given some spare lanyard hardware, snap hooks and clips, and a nice discontinued production model pocket knife made in Seki-Japan with decent ATS-34 knife steel, from friend and knifemaker Paul Granger, that shared a table at the Blade Show with Tom Stratton, who does some great fileworking on knives. Tom also does filework on some of the knife blades for Victorinox Swiss Army knives available from Swissbianco.

I took a laptop bag full of some knot work, that I've tied up over the past few months, with me to the show, thinking I might sell some, but I'm just not much of a salesman, refusing any payment as I ended up giving away 40+ assorted lanyards and fobs, I lost count, to friends and new acquaintances. :)