Making of a themed lanyard

It's the super long National Day holiday long weekend... Damn! Super rain 2 days in a row.. maybe we are getting the tail end of the typhoon hitting Taiwan and Japan.

Most of my lanyard, on their hows and why were addressed previously. The few beads acquired recently surely deserves to be put on a nice lanyard. Yet I was constipated for ideas. Bought a bunch of different paracord but they have not arrived.

Google and youtube turns up the usual plaiting and braiding. Same knots, different paracord... basically a game of color matching your beads to your reed (paracord) like everyone else.... Just as I thought of that, it occurred to me that's exactly what I was doing! Buying and matching paracord to my beads LIKE EVERYONE ELSE!

Needed a challenge. Needed something a little different.

There.. Right in front of me was some plain white paracord. Here's the challenge-- how to make use of what's around and create something a little different.

"Eddy" as already mentioned was made in honor of cycling great, Eddy Merckx... "What's better than a bike themed lanyard". The bike this lanyard will go on has bits of white. Bar tapes and all. White paracord... perfect!

Next was to rake up the bike theme....hmmm for that yours truly the Reverend El Cheapo took a dig at the Bin Of Eternal Castaway Bike Parts.

Still can't get Eugene's custom Samurai bead with moving parts out of my head. Ok if you folks have not seen it, click at your own risk :-) It's bead porn at its best. No offense to fans of other makers, but not even Starlingear beads can raise my interest after seeing this one. Absolute art!


An idea struck. If there is one abhorrent thing that always' irk me, it's the burnt ends on paracord in a lanyard left sticking out like a sore sight.

So many nice work out there, yet so many never escape that fate.

A one last bit of ugliness clinging on to otherwise beautiful and meticulous time consuming work to beautify whatever we want to tie a lanyard on.
......................


Ok- I'm gonna make a bike theme lanyard with "moving and removable" parts.

But first thing first... S.O.P. Basic round knot as a stopper end.

Can't do the usual thread a string
and pull thru with 2 separate strand
of paracord endings. But this was the
only "difficult" part. Once through,
just cut and melt both ends together.

Well what better way to cap off those ugly burnt end... Why with a valve cap  of course. For now its a KCNC that happens to be around but with the endless array of nice ones available these days, pretty sure I could find something else and swap them out as and when... Removable and Changeable! Checked!

Top  looks a little bland...

No problem. I have discovered a never-ending supply of little small round things. Rollers from old chains. Seriously, who the f%*% keeps worn out chains except me.. Damn! Now my little hoarding secret is known to the world...

Whenever looking at all these bits and pieces, I see the vast amount of resources and energy that went into making them. Couple of thousand kilometers later, we change and throw them out. What a waste. To me, there's a finite supply of resources.. we have just been using up too much...  ok I digress.

Have long since discovered these are great for washers and whatever not...

With a little cleaning,   Ta Da.... Eddy Bead lanyard is finished.

Couple more...

Stacked together to look like a "bead" or space them out along the length of the lanyard
Later on they could be dremeled, heat ano or whatever just like all those mindless amount of time that can be spent on
every tiny bit of metal we put into our knives :)

Off I go now. Riding with Eddy :)

Lanyards

Accessories or necessities?

Folks put a lanyard on their knives for different reasons. Or course what better way to utilize after scoring a nice bead right?

I did not take much notice of lanyards for folding knives until...

finding myself having to put them down in order to do something. Only to pick it up again soon afterwards. Example in the field, while cutting up food and the stove/ pan starts to get over heated.. I can quickly release the knife to remove the utensil from the fire without leaving  the knife down if I have it looped over the last 2-3 fingers...

Short lanyards seem to be trending.. From a functional point, many simply use them to tug the knife out of the pocket and looks neater of course.. like a cutesy little tail. 

While the aesthetics are good but too short a lanyard doesn't cut it for me.


 To illustrate..

".....at the work bench working with a knife...
... reaching out for a recessed light switch.."

Bang! With knife in hand, it gets in the way.
Either scratching something or accidentally poking the tip into some hard surface"

If there is one thing I absolutely can't stand.. it's a mauled up tip. You can have a perfect knife but without a proper tip... oh well...






 With a short loop over 3 digits...

Working out the loop length vs knife size is something that will take awhile.. because my benchmark is something that fit comfortably while not impeding operation of the knife during opening and closing.

Too short and nothing is ever gonna go right. Nothing worse than to flick the wrist upwards to try and catch the hanging knife and mid way as the hand reached down... OOPS! too short and the knife falls back down... I watched it and  -- it's gonna make you look really dumb if you have an audience around. Or worse, the knife will just over-rotate. Surely don't want to have the blade or tip falling on your arm...

"But.. short lanyards where u slip only the pinkie in would be like a longer loop for 3 fingers.. no?"
Well.. yes and no (for me). It takes a tad more time to accurately slip the pinkie in. Furthermore anytime when I am dangling something off hte last finger, its kind of feels "insecure" that I might drop it anytime.

Generally for me, a smaller width knife with 3.0"- 3.5" blade goes well with a 3.5 finger width loop like the Spyderco Southard here.



The F95 has a similar length but gets a little tight when holding the knife with all 3 fingers looped.. Hence for this it's normally hooked around the last 2 fingers which works out pretty well...

Getting too wordy? Yea, I concur. A video is probably better...

A little shaky but its a pain trying to do everything with the left hand and holding the cam with the other.. when everything from knife to phone are oriented for the right-handed world. Guess in a way that serves to explain the effectiveness of having a correct length of lanyard looping over the finger too..