Thursday, February 15, 2007



Once you have the 5 inch length and have looped the cord onto your chosen attachment, you'll start your cobra stitches working down toward the lanyard knot. Don't make the knots too tight or too loose.

Make each knot with the same amount of tension keeping them even as you go. You're going to make 11 stitches total between the attachment and the lanyard knot. If you're doing them right, it should easily fill the 5 inch length.




Once you have those 11 stitchs, you'll turn it around and start making your king cobra stitches over the first layer working your way back toward your attachment.

Make sure that the king cobra knots evenly overlap the knots below. You'll be pulling these knots tighter(not too tight, just a firm tug on each knot) than you did with the first set on stitches. Take the time to make sure they stay neat over the underlying knots.



If you do this right, you'll come out with just the extra amount you started with over the 10 feet. I mess up sometimes and have too much or too little cord left. Just untie it as far as you think you have to, and tie it again a little tighter if you came up short or looser if you had too much left over.

Don't expect to get it right the first time. Every time I try a variation, it's a learning experience for me.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can you tell me how to make one with two colors...like one color on the outside and one color in the middle?

Stormdrane said...

Sew, melt, or glue two pieces of paracord together at what would be close to the middle of a single strand.(instead of a 10.5 foot long piece of cord, one cord is 5.5 ft and the other is 5 ft long).

Then tie the lanyard knot with the extra 0.5 feet next to where the color connection is.

This will leave the loop and lanyard knot in one color with equal lengths of the two separate colors(connected point is just below the lanyard knot, and will be covered by the knots) remaining to loop around your attachement(split ring, swivel, carabiner, etc...) and tying the knots.

Cathy said...

Thanks so much for the instructions for this! I just made a lanyard for my little Buck knife and with the extra cord at the end...I wove it back through to the lanyard knot using needle nose forceps! Didn't waste much and it looks great!

Anonymous said...

Thanks a lot..tht was a good tips ever i have..
Cheers,

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Anonymous said...

Can you point me to a site where i can buy 550 mil-spec paracord?

Stormdrane said...

@Anonymous, Most paracord found today is commercial grade 550 paracord, which slightly different than military issue paracord, using less expensive yarns and government required testing.

The commercial grade paracord is made by the same manufacturers on the same equipment as the more expensive military issue cord, which costs two or more times as much as the commercial grade, and is harder to find as well.

The commercial grade cord works just fine for utility uses and decorative knot work, still meeting most of the strength and durability requirements as the military issue.

There are many sources for the commercial grade paracord, such as from the Supply Captain, as listed in my links list. If you want the genuine military issue, mil-spec paracord, you can try contacting manufacturers like Gladding or Atlanco, but they usually only sell to venders/distributors and in bulk.