Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Knurled Copper and Tether Cord...

This month I've tied some knot work with a few items I received from County Comm, one of which is a tether cord version of the leather neck lanyard I tied for a blog post last month.

Some of the items I received included some cool Copper Cord Clutch knurled lanyard beads, Flat Gate Clips, 3/32" Tether Nylon Cord, Machinist Screwdriver, and a couple neat Mil-Spec Stainless Steel Containers for storage.

For the neck lanyard, shown with a pocket watch, I used a four strand round braid, with safety break-away clasp, and a few Gaucho knots, one covering the clasp, a couple of small Turk's head knots on either side, and a couple of different sliding Gaucho knots above the ring hitched snap hook.

I also tied a couple of 18" long lanyards with the tether cord, knurled copper beads, and flat gate clips, using the four strand round braids, one with a spiral pattern, the other with the diamond pattern.  I made a loop at the starting end, a lanyard knot, added a bead, then tied another lanyard knot before doing the round braid for the body length, and then another lanyard knot, bead, attaching the gate clip, and tying another lanyard knot to secure it.  Gaucho knots were then tied and tightened over the braid at each end.  The copper beads should develop a nice patina, with handling over time.

I tied a simple Turk's head knot around the top of the pocket screwdriver.  Anyone that does a bit of tinkering, needs a standard/phillips screwdriver, and these are pretty nice, with the knurled cap/body, stainless steel pocket clip, long doubled ended bit, and magnetic tip on the top end of the cap.  The knot, tied with 0.9mm cord, is tightened over the knurling, so it's secure where it is.

The stainless steel containers with snap on lid come in handy for storing all kinds of items.  I was able to fit a 50 foot hank of paracord into one, with few other items.

I used a stainless steel marlin spike to work the tether cord Gaucho knots, receiving the custom made spike from Chuck Alford during a knot exchange, done by some members of a Facebook knot group earlier this year.

10 comments:

sharkbait said...

Great work. You and JD are making me fat because there's way too much knotting to be learned to be wasting time with exercise :)

Home on the Range said...

The piece with the watch is now my screen saver. Beautiful!

David said...

Those are fantastic. I cant wait to get home and try to make them. Where do you find such great looking clasps and clips?

Stormdrane said...

@David, Some of the clips I use come from County Comm:

Machined titanium flat gate clip

Stainless steel flat gate clip

Yacht clip

Gate clip

And the snap hooks from Creative Designworks .

smet337 said...

Good evening Stormdrane on the lanyard you said that you made a couple of gaucho knots that slide,I should know the answer but did you tie them around a bead? Man I really love these they are just so cool! Thanks much Scot

Stormdrane said...

@Scot, I tied and tightened the sliding beads around a Sharpie marker, slid them off, then gave them a coat of super glue all around the insides of the knot, and let dry. It stiffens them up and keeps them in their shape.

You can tie them around a bead, or something like a cut section of pipe/tubing(plastic/pvc/metal/etc.) if you want, and leave it like that.

No rules on how to do it, just lots of different possibilities of ways that can work, some may work better than others. You just have to try and experiment with a variety of methods to see what might work and what you like... ;)

Anonymous said...

Dude were did you pick up that cord ..very nice

Stormdrane said...

@Anonymous, The 3/32" tether cord used for the lanyards came from County Comm.

IUheinz57 said...

How did you tie the lanyard knots around the copper cord clutches? Also from there how did you incorporate the new color of cord seamlessly? Your work is great! Love all of your tutorials on YouTube. Keep up the great work

Eric

Stormdrane said...

@Eric, From the blog post, "I made a loop at the starting end, a lanyard knot, added a bead, then tied another lanyard knot before doing the round braid for the body length, and then another lanyard knot, bead, attaching the gate clip, and tying another lanyard knot to secure it. Gaucho knots were then tied and tightened over the braid at each end."

The second color cord was centered and added after the second lanyard knot so the braid could be tied. The Gaucho knots hide the second color start/ends. ;)