Long turks head knot lanyard...

This is the single longest knotting project, as far as time invested, that I've worked on so far.

Around 9+ hours, most of which in tying the 109 lead 4 bight turks head knot, with a little over 60 feet of black and tan 1.4mm nylon cord. Well, I was watching TV at the same time, so there was some distraction involved...

I started with a doubled up 50 foot length of the 1.4mm tan, although I don't know if running it like that saved me any time, compared to running two passes with a singled line. It was constantly getting twisted as I worked, and had to be dealt with after crossings and each over/under. Either way, that's a lot of cord to feed through, keep straight, and neat, before adding the 20+ foot length of black 1.4mm cord between the tan...

I tied the long 4 bight turks head around a rifle cleaning rod, which was about 30 inches long, and after tightening, straightening, and working the slack out, got the knot down to about 24 inches long. I then slid it off the cleaning rod and pulled a doubled up 6 foot length of paracord through, with lanyard knot and loop on one end, and finished with a swivel clip/snap hook, and lanyard knot on the other end. A little bit of needle and thread was worked around both ends of the turks head knot, to keep it in place on the lanyard.

 The look/feel of the finished turks head knot/lanyard is rope-like, in a somewhat oval shape, around the two strands of paracord, about 3/8" to 1/2" height/width from front and side angles.

I may use this as a wallet lanyard, but it would work well with a knife, multitool, flashlight, cell phone, or some other gear or gadget... I think it came out fairly nice, but I don't see myself spending that much time on a single project again anytime soon. A longer turks head knot like that, takes a lot of care in keeping it neat while tying.

I did make one error, missing an over on a crossing, but decided to leave it instead of untying for a fix, to remind me to pay more attention in the future...

The 'Encyclopedia of Rawhide and Leather Braiding' by Bruce Grant, has listed in the contents, 'Two-Bight Turk's-head of Any Length'. There's all kinds of knot work shown within the book, with plenty of information pictures and diagrams to learn from. 

Bud Brewer's tutorial, is a good online resource to learn a 2 bight turks head knot, and then increase it to a 4 bight knot. For longer lengths, just take the cord around your mandrel(whatever object you're tying around) as many times as you want, and make all the same crossings and overs/unders, as shown in the tutorial.