Paracord Fusion Ties - Volume 2: Survival Ties, Pouches, Bars, Snake Knots, & Sinnets

I was excited to receive a signed copy of JD Lenzen's new book last month, 'Paracord Fusion Ties, Vol. 2: Survival Ties, Pouches, Bars, Snake Knots, and Sinnets', with the foreword written by Kevin G. Gagne(The Paracordist).  Many are familiar with JD from seeing his Tying It All Together(TIAT) Channel on YouTube and Facebook.  With all the great projects inside, it makes you wonder how he's gonna top this with then next volume, but if you've seen the work he's shared, you know he will.

I tied this 'Secret Compartment Fob', from Chapter 7 of the book, with red, white and blue paracord, and placed a 2" x 3/16" misch metal ferro rod inside(which can be scraped to make sparks to help get a fire started), and attached it to one of my Swiss Army Knives.  I also added a Tiki bead to the fob, that I received from Schmuckatelli Co.  You could instead put rolled up money or a note with important info inside the fob, or similar sized objects.

The fob is tied with three middled strands of paracord so you have six working ends to tie a crown sinnet(round/spiral pattern), and finished with a 6-strand diamond knot, with the end strands trimmed to however long you want them.  The firesteel stays securely inside until you want to remove it, pushing it out from the top end, and is easy to reinsert, and just pull/tighten each of the end strands to close it back up. 

Brighter paracord colors used with lanyards and fobs help to keep them visible so you don't lose whatever you've attached them to if you should drop or set them down, but you can certainly work with 'tactical' or subdued solid colors like black, olive drab, tan, coyote brown, green, navy blue, etc... or one of the multitude of camo/combination/reflective/glow-in-the-dark variations now available.

I left the inner strands intact on this one, but you can gut them if you like.  You can tie these like I've tied my paracord wrist lanyards, having loops on both ends of the crown sinnet for more attachment options.  Took a few more pics of the cool Tiki beads(Ona, Kiko, and Ku) used on the examples I've tied here.

And I tied a modified version combining JD's secret compartment fob and my regular wrist crown sinnets, that have attachment loops on both ends for lanyard use, large wrist loop, and small loop around snap hook/swivel clip.  I used some ranger green(5 ft), brown(4.5ft), and woodland camo(4ft) paracord for the lanyard, and put a 2" x 1/8" firesteel inside the crown sinnet, alongside the wrist loop cords that the 6 strand crown sinnet is tied around.  

 I used a black oxide 'Classic' Schmuckatelli skull over the wrist loop paracord strand, which was not gutted.  The brown and camo strands were gutted.  Added six small 'Joe' skulls on the end strands after the diamond knot, and those strands will hang up or down depending on which way you have the lanyard oriented.  

I melted the ends of the paracord below the small skulls, then flattened each end out with pliers, so the cooled hardened paracord is then wider than the skull's hole, so they don't fall off.   The modified 'Secret Compartment' lanyard is pictured next to my EDC keychain for size reference, with the finished lanyard being about 14 inches long, including the snap hook/swivel clip.