I've used these types of compasses before with paracord bracelets, lanyards, fobs, and clipped to watchbands and zipper pulls on bags, packs, and jackets. They work fine for helping keep track of general direction finding, North/South/East/West, and make for a nice backup. 
I attached one of the compasses to a Crisscrossed Solomon Bar paracord bracelet, tied following JD's(TIAT) tutorial, but using a side release buckle instead of a knot/loop closure.
I zigzag spooled 10 feet of 0.9mm braided nylon cord(40lb test) around one of the strikers and will do a Turk's head knot around the other...
I've seen similar flint strikers before, plastic versions made for the military and some brass models, and they work well with getting a spark to ignite prepared tinder, like Tinder-Quick, Wetfire or homemade tinder consisting of cotton balls saturated with petroleum jelly, which can be stored in a pill fob, old film canister, or small zip lock bags and placed in EDC/survival/emergency kits or tins.
9 comments:
Hello there,
I couldn't find any good way to get in contact with you so I figured posting here might work. First of all, you have some really awesome work as well as some extremely helpful videos. I've been trying to learn some turk's head knot work and have done your 2 bight lanyard tutorial as well as your 16L3B video. I was just wondering if you could point me in the right direction to where I can learn how to tie a 4 bight turks head knot similar to how you tied in your various lanyards you have posted on your blog. Thanks for any help!
- Matt
@Matt, The tutorial by Bud Brewer on the Knot Heads World Wide site shows how to tie the long 4 bight Turk's head, which starts out as the 2 bight knot, just follow close attention to the instructions.
Thanks a lot for the link! And just to be clear, if I wanted to extend this knot along a longer length I would simply have to increase the number of initial wraps and then follow the same pattern thoughout?
Yes, you tie the 2 bight knot first, making the initial wraps for however long you want, then you can increase that knot into a 4 bight following the pattern shown in the tutorial.
Make sure you have enough slack in the 2 bight knot as it can get tight when you work it into a 4 bight, especially if you intend to do more than a couple of passes.
And try to keep the crossings lined up as you work so the finished knot is nice, straight, and neat when tightened up... ;)
Absolutely stellar library of information! You would make a killing at the Blade Show in Atlanta- mostly standard lanyards and monkey fist type products. Drop me a line at HawkPilot at Militarysportsman dot com and I'll forward you a few photos of my skull 50 cal bottle openers to get your opinion. I'm trying to figure out a gnarly design for a lanyard to hold the skull opener for a motorcycle club in NC. And if you have a moment to point me in the right direction I'll be grateful.
Really cool blog! After reading the watchband post, and the compass band post, do you think you could make a combination of watch + compass bands? I'm going to try it, but any additional advice or tips would be welcomed.
Cheers,
Bryan
@Gigs, You can certainly use both a watch and compass with various paracord bracelet patterns, setting them side by side, spaced separately between the knot work, or place the compass directly next to the buckle and center the watch, etc. Placement is up to you and what feels comfortable... ;)
This is really cool. I have never done any of this before, but I think I want to make a few of these as Christmas gifts this year. Are there tutorials on this blog to help lead me in the right direction to create this awesome compass/flint bracelet? Hopefully in 4 months time I can learn to do this. The photos are stellar, too!
@Nathan, there are some tutorials/links to learning resources spread around the blog.
You can look through JD's TyingItAllTogether(TIAT) youtube tutorials for many bracelet patterns(link in the blog post), and many of those can be applied to using a side release buckle instead of a knot and loop closure.
Some of my bracelet instructables show how to with attaching paracord to a buckle and you can follow different patterns from there.
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