Skulls, spikes, and crosses...

I received the new Collossus Skull from County Comm a few weeks back, and it's a nice hefty chunk of stainless steel compared to the smaller lanyard sized beads I've been using over the years.  It's been serving as a cool paperweight while I've pondered on possible knot work projects with it.

I've been looking for a gentleman's type cane/walking stick, where I might be able to drill/tap the skull where there's a spot for it on the underside, and add a long lag screw/bolt to secure it to the cane, but haven't found what I'm looking for yet.  If you have the right kind of vehicle, the skull would make a neat manual shifter knob too.

One of the photos shows the Collossus with some of the other skulls from County Comm, the Goliath, Titan, and Yorick, a couple with glow-in-th-dark powder and epoxy mix that I added to the eye sockets.

I decided to try using paracord run through the skull's jaw holes and secure it to the top of a walking staff with knot work, giving a Gaucho knot a try, and although that does work, I'd still like the added security of screwing it down into the wood, PVC, or other possible walking stick/staff/cane material...

Knot tying friend Shane Marks sent me a couple of his Rhino Ropework marlinspikes, one of each in brass and steel to try out.  I've been giving both a workout tying a couple dozen Sailor's Cross Knots over the last couple of weeks.

I added knot work to both marlinspikes with 1.4mm cord, tying a few Turk's head knot variations of Gauchos and pineapple knots.

I like that they have lanyard holes at the top end, so adding a loop of cord lets me run a finger through for retention, so that I don't have to set the spike down while working with it.  They also have grooves that allow adding rubber o-rings, which also offers a little extra grip.

I put the crosses on key rings, some with small LED lights and others with some P-38 and P-51 can openers on them, and gave them to my dad to distribute to some of the volunteers at the church food pantry and homeless ministry.

Happy Thanksgiving!







 

Gemini Twins and Tomahawk time...

Schmuckatelli Co sent me several of their new Gemini Twins skull beads a couple of weeks ago, in pewter, hematite, and antique copper finishes, to try out with some knotting projects.

The first one I used was an antique copper version for a wrist lanyard with a two-strand stopper knot(ABoK #778) on the SOG Tactical Tomahawk, that I bought myself for my birthday last month.

I couldn't stop with just a wrist strap, so also added some more knot work down the length of the handle, but first wrapped it with some Extreme Tape to give the tightened paracord work a better grip on the handle.

I started with a 60 ft length of green paracord, which turned out to be way too much, but I wasn't sure if I was going to double/triple the Turk's head knot or leave it open, so I over-estimated to be on the safe side, hoping it would be long enough for a few different knots and hand grip wrapping.


A three pass Gaucho knot was tied first, at the top of the handle, then I continued on with a single pass of a long 4 bight Turk's head knot(41 lead 4 bight), left in an open lattice pattern, tied another Gaucho knot, coil wrapped the hand grip section, and then another Gaucho knot to just above the handle's lanyard hole.

Before tightening up the hand grip and last Gaucho, I went back with a strand of gutted black paracord to add some stair step stitching, down one side, through the lanyard hole, and back up the other side, then tightened up the Gauchos and grip work to finish.

I ended up using about 35 feet of the green paracord, and since it's in a single strand, it could be untied and re-purposed if needed.

Tomahawk shown attached to my XL Sat-Com Bag(bug-out bag), with a few other odds and ends on the outside, and snacks, water, toilet paper, clean underwear & socks on the inside, cause those might come in handy should a zombie apocalypse scenario erupt in the near future...

A blog reader had asked about continuing the knot work after tying the long Turk's head knot, wondering about how the working end finishes the knot at the standing end, and what I do is run the strand down the center length of the handle underneath the crossings of the TH knot before tightening, so I can continue with more knot work on the handle using the same strand of paracord.  As seen in the added photo of the backside of the tomahawk handle wrap, even with an open lattice pattern, the underlying strand is barely noticeable.

I uploaded a short video to YouTube showing how to tie a two-strand stopper knot, which is knot #778 in 'The Ashley Book of Knots', that I used for the tomahawk's wrist lanyard.