Some Knot Work for Father's Day...

I bought a compact hand truck, that folds up, for my pa for Father's Day to keep in his vehicle, and added some simple knot work to the frame.

I tied several gaucho knots with navy blue paracord and coiled orange paracord up between the those knots on the center rails of the hand truck frame.

Pa's a disabled veteran, and with back issues cannot lift or carry anything heavy anymore, so this hand truck with a 150lb load limit might help him with moving things from his vehicle back and forth with food pantry items at the church, and with the coolers they use to keep food cold/warm that they give out with the homeless ministry.

I used about 10 feet of a single strand of navy blue paracord on each side tying the gaucho knots, and about an 8 foot single strand of the orange paracord on each side.

First I wrapped some extreme tape around both sides of the hand truck frame rails where I intended to do the knot work, so that the tightened paracord would have a secure grip over the smooth aluminum frame and not twist or slide around.  Then I tied the first gaucho knot, with the orange strand underneath it, then tightened the gaucho.

Now with the secured orange strand I coiled it up around the frame rail and over the navy blue gaucho knot strand for the spacing I wanted and tied another gaucho, with the orange strand running underneath.

Again the orange strand was coiled up with the navy blue underneath, then a final gaucho with the orange end underneath, tighten and secured.  I trimmed the excess cord off from the start and finished ends, and tucked those to complete one side rail.

For the other side, I did the same, but mirrored the gauchos and wrap, meaning they were tied in the opposite direction, although most folks wouldn't notice details like that, just maybe some knot knuts, lol...  I didn't cover all of the center rail sections because there are a couple of holes where spring loaded pins pop out to secure the telescoping handle when it's extended and didn't want the wraps to interfere with those.

Also with the navy blue gauchos sitting a little taller around the rails than the orange cord, might mean any boxes and whatnot loaded on the hand truck will rest on the darker color paracord so the orange doesn't get dirtied up as much over time.

My hemostats came in handy holding the orange paracord in place as I tied the gaucho knots, and for this project I use the marlinspike that Russell from the JigProShop sent me earlier this year.  I rotate using the marlinspikes I have, including those from Rhino Ropework and BayouBug's Knots & Tools, and still grab my clay stylus for improvised marlinspike duty often as well.

My folks are both Auburn University graduates, so that's why the navy blue and orange colors were used.  War Eagle!

The Jig Pro Shop had recently sent me some of their knitting spools to test out, and so far I've made a couple of lanyards with the small spool, using navy blue 'Type I'/#95/1/16" cord for a two peg knit, and olive drab for a three peg knit.  The spool produced a nice tight knit for the lanyards and was easy to work with.