Thursday, April 29, 2010

Chinese lanyard knot...

This is a Chinese lanyard knot, ABoK knot #807, tied with paracord. The knot is also known as the plafond knot.

I followed the directions for tying in my copy of Geoffrey Budworth's 'The Complete Book of Decorative Knots'. You can also find a YouTube video tutorial for the knot from TIAT.

The knot has a flat square shape and the pattern looks the same on the front and back.

The knife shown is a Victorinox Swiss Army Huntsman.

...And a paracord bracelet version with integrated Chinese lanyard knots.

I just looped onto one buckle end, tied 3 spaced out Chinese lanyard knots, looped around other buckle end at wrist size, then tied the cobra stitches/Solomon bar/Portuguese sinnet back towards starting end. Run the cords through the underside of each of the Chinese lanyard knots as you go.

Monday, April 26, 2010

Money clip knots...

I received a nice stainless money clip, from Bill of Crazy4 Money Clips, to try some knot work on.

Using 0.9mm braided nylon mini blind string, I first tried wrapping the cutout sections of the clip with cobra stitch/Solomon bar/Portuguese sinnets.

I also tried a 3 lead 8 bight turks head knot to fit around the clip. I only had white string, but Sharpie markers do an ok job at creating other colors, and I ended up with the red, white, and blue turks head.

I also tried some 'West Country Whipping' on the back section of the clip.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Celtic button knot....

The Celtic button knot looks like the lanyard knot, but is tied with a single working end.  Example shown tied with paracord.

I find them useful as a decorative stopper/terminal knot and finishing the ends of lanyard strands. Here's a short video on tying them, and another link that also shows a sliding version for use with an adjustable necklace/neck lanyard.

Friday, April 16, 2010

Boot knife handle wrap...

I used a single 15 foot length of black 1.4mm braided nylon string to wrap the boot knife handle.

I started with a 3 lead 5 bight turks head knot with three passes. I then ran the cord up to the end of the handle and through the lanyard hole, back down to the turks head knot, where I worked it over/under one of the bights, and then started wrapping the cord around the handle. I went under the cords running up the handle for a turn, then over the cords, alternating the wrap towards the end. I made another 3 lead 5 bight turks head knot over the handle's lanyard hole to finish the wrap.

Wednesday, April 07, 2010

Moku hitching...

I put some Moku hitching(coxcombing) on the top section of this adjustable walking cane. The link shows half Moku hitching, but the instructions do mention how to do the full hitching.

I used two 20 foot lengths of cotton cord for the hitching, for about one foot or so of knotted length on the top curved section of the cane, and a few more feet for each of the 5 lead 4 bight 2 pass turks head knots that were tied over the start and finished ends of the hitching. I had to take a quick glance at my copy of 'Creative Ropecraft' to refresh my memory on the smaller turks head. Even simple knots aren't so simple if you can't remember how to tie them from lack of practice. I also used a few drops of super glue to secure the ends of the cotton cord. The cord came from the fishing tackle section at Walmart.

I could have used more cord to make it longer, but I didn't want to cover the adjustment holes on this particular cane. I've haven't applied anything like varnish to the cotton cord, but that could be done to extend the life of the knotwork and probably protect it from dirt, UV light, and staining over time. Paracord would also work well for this type of knot work, but inexpensive cotton and hemp type twisted lines have a nice look of their own.