Firesteel / Misch Metal Ferro Rods

I went to the local gun show this past weekend to look around, and Going Gear had a booth set up there. I'd seen the firesteel/ferro rods on their website along with a video showing how well they work, so I bought a few various smaller sized blanks to do some knot work on. They also had some nice wood handles for them, but I knew I wanted to try some knots, so I just bought the blanks.

I've seen several examples over the last few years with firesteels and flints being wrapped with paracord in round crown sinnets, like those sold by TAD Gear, and I even have one made like that, that a friend sent me a couple of years ago.

So far I've tied a snake knot grip with 2.4mm cord on the longer one I bought, and the next shorter one had close to 10 feet of paracord tied as a lanyard around it, and a smaller lanyard tied around one with 1.4mm cord, which would also make a good sized zipper pull firesteel.

I usually have a lighter or matches on or near me, but should those fail and a firestarting need arise, a firesteel is a good backup, and don't forget some tinder to help get that fire going.

Two toned woven paracord watchband

The same weaving method as used with these previous versions of paracord bracelets was done, except two different colors of paracord were attached first(sample photo). Sew, melt, or glue them together after tucking one end into the other.

The paracord is then looped onto side release buckles, with the attached section, in between the side release buckle ends, and used as the two strand core to be woven around. That keeps the connection out of sight.

To finish, the ends were tucked back into the last couple of weaves and the excess cord is trimmed and tucked.

Knotted lanyard/fob with cross...

Made with about 7 feet of 1.4mm braided nylon trot line, using a king cobra stitch, also known as a doubled Solomon bar or a doubled Portuguese sinnet knot.

Six lanyard knots were then tied for the vertical section of the cross, with a space between the 2nd and 3rd knots.

A separate 2 foot long piece of cord was then used for the horizontal cross section, with two lanyard knots tied, the cord ends pulled through the space left in the vertical section, then two more lanyard knots tied to finish.

Three crimp beads, from a Michaels craft store, were added to the loop section of the lanyard/fob.

The knife is a variation of the Spyderco Delica.

Two toned paracord fob

I tied a common noose knot for this lanyard/fob, but doubled it with two different colors of paracord.

Some folks call it a coil knot. I used about 2.5'(feet) each, of camo green and black paracord to start and only trimmed a few inches off of them when finished. There are four strands at the end, since it's doubled, two were trimmed/melted and the other pair were used for a lanyard knot.

An S-Biner or carabiner could be used, just above the lanyard knot and below the coil, to clip to a belt loop, bag, pack, etc... Or if one of the cord strands was a few inches longer, it could be used to form a loop, after the lanyard knot, and worked back into the knot.

I left the two loop ends just large enough for my little finger for added retention when using the knife(Wenger Evogrip 18).