Two Color Cobra Stitch Lanyard

For this project you will be needing two colors of paracord ( i chose pink instead of the black with colors in the pic), a ruler, a lighter, a key ring, and a pair of scissors.

Pick your color of paracord and wrap it around your neck and adjust it to a length that you are comfortable with. For me i'm comfortable with 35 inches, after you have found the length add 18 inches to it. The extra inches are for tying the cobra stitch. 

Take your second an measure it to 18 inches and cut. 
For combining these two pieces of paracord you need to take the lighter and melt one the ends of the two pieces. You only have a few seconds to join the two melted ends before they harden. As soon as you have joined the two pieces blow on it to harden so it will harden faster.

 
After you have joined the pieces find the midpoint of the entire length of cord and fold the cord in half. After you have folded the cord pull the ends threw the key ring and place it roughly 2 to 4 inches or where ever you like from the spot where the two are joined.

After you have placed the key ring where you like it. It's now time to start tying the cobra stitch to tie this knot take the cord on the right side under the left side cord, over the center strands, and thru the loop of the left side cord. Tighten up the cords so the half knot you just formed is next to the buckle. Now take the right side cord under the center strands. The left side cord goes under the right side cord, over the center strands and thru the loop of the right side cord. Tighten up the cords(not too tight, just until they meet the resistance of the knot) and now you have a completed knot. You will continue doing the alternating the left and right sides as you go. If you don't alternate, you'll quickly see a twisting of the knots, just undo the last knot and alternate it to correct.

After you have tied to your desired length snip the ends and melt the ends and you can now use it, wear it, or give it to someone.

The Cobra Stitch Bracelet

For this project you'll need paracord, a tape measure or ruler, scissors, side release buckle( i have two kinds im showing a common one and a whistle kind), and a lighter. The amount of cord used can vary, but for this example, we'll use 8 feet of paracord to start with. Actual amount of cord used for the bracelet is about 1 foot of cord for every 1 inch of knotted bracelet length. So if your wrist is 8 inches, you'd use approximately 7 to 8 feet of cord.

 Wrap the paracord around you wrist and make a note of where the cord meets i used a sharpie to mark the point. Hold this point next to your ruler or tape measure and that's your wrist size.

 Hold the ends of the cord together and find the center of the loop. Take the center of the cord and pull it thru one end of the buckle(either side of the buckle, it doesn't matter). Now pull the cord ends thru the loop until it's tightened up and attached to the buckle.

 Take buckle apart and and pull the free ends of the cord thru the other part of the buckle, sliding it up towards the attached part. You're going to measure the distance between the two buckle ends for the bracelet size for your wrist. Add about 1 inch to your measured wrist length, this will make the finished bracelet a comfortable fit. You're measuring from the end of the female part of the buckle to the flat part of the male end of the buckle(the part with the prongs, they don't count for the measurement because the fit inside the female part of the buckle when the bracelet is closed.)  

 The knot used for the bracelet has a few different names, cobra stitch, Solomon bar, and Portuguese sinnet. Take the cord on the left side and place it under the center strands running between the buckle ends. Now take the cord on the right side under the left side cord, over the center strands, and thru the loop of the left side cord. Tighten up the cords so the half knot you just formed is next to the buckle. Now take the right side cord under the center strands. The left side cord goes under the right side cord, over the center strands and thru the loop of the right side cord. Tighten up the cords(not too tight, just until they meet the resistance of the knot) and now you have a completed knot. You will continue doing the alternating the left and right sides as you go. If you don't alternate, you'll quickly see a twisting of the knots, just undo the last knot and alternate it to correct.

 Keep tying the knots until you have filled the space between the buckle ends. The knots should be uniform from one end to the other. Tie each knot with the same tension to keep the them all the same size 

 You can now use your scissors to trim off the extra cord closely to the last knot you tied. I trim one at a time, and use my lighter to quickly melt the end I cut, wait a second for the melted cord to cool just a bit and then use my thumb to press the melted end onto the surrounding cord so it hardens as it attaches. You must be careful with this step. The melted cord is extremely hot, and it's possible to get burned, so you might also try using a soldering iron or wood burning tool for the melting step if you wish, or even use something like a butter knife, the side of your lighter, or the knurled section of a tool to flatten out the melted end of the cord to finish it.

What is Paracord?

If you have seen people wearing a bracelet made out of some kind of rope like cord. They are wearing a paracord survival braclet. A paracord survival bracelet is made out of 550 military spec parachute corddage. it is called 550 because it will take a excess of more than 550 pounds to break it. It gets its strength from 7 inner strands of cordage which has a breaking load of 50 pounds each and the outer layer has a breaking load of 220 pounds. 550 paracord was originally used  for suspension lines in US parachutes during World War II by paratroopers. Once in the field the parachutes found this cordage very useful in many tasks such as shoelaces, turniques, taking the inner strands out and using them as fishing line, etc. Today 550 paracord is generally used as a utility cord by both the US military and civilians. Here is a little fun fact 550 cord is so verstaile that even NASA uses it. Yes NASA, astronauts during the second space shuttle mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope used 550 cord to help repair it in some way. Other than being used by NASA and the US military it is widely used by hunters, campers, hikers, etc.