I was over at Stormdrane’s blog a couple of day ago, and found an easy how-to for making a needle for paracord knot work. First let me say that Stormdrane is a master at knot typing, and does things with line that makes me jealous. Go check him out. NOW. The come back and read the rest of this.

Why are you still reading this? Click here and his page will open in a new window.

There, now your are more enlightened in the art of knots. Back to my story.

Every person that’s ever thought of going into the wild knows of parachute cord, or “paracord”. It’s the duct tape of the rope/string/cordage world. Personally, I use it from shoestrings to hatbands, and dozens of other things in between. There are multiple classes, but the one most well known is Class III, and it consists of a braided nylon hollow core wrapped around 7 to 9 inner strands of three-ply twisted nylon lines, with a minimum total breaking strength of 550 pounds, thus the term “550 cord”. GREAT stuff!

So i was browsing Stormdranes blog, looking at his Turk’s head knots, a single strand
On to the methodology.braided into a ring, bracelet, wrap, etc. Lovely things in themselves, by old Stormy takes great pride in his work and it shows. Stumbling around, I found one of his secrets, a threaded lacing needle. Taking a melted end of paracord (melt it to prevent unraveling), you insert it into the hollow end of the needle and twist it, screwing it into the threads. This allows the end of the paracord to have a rigidity allows to be pushed throw the ever-tightening knots as you progress. Being only minimally larger in diameter than the paracord, it works like a needle. Since it also has a pointed end good for opening knots to insert additional runs, it also works like a “fid”. (Since it combines a needles usefulness and a fid’s functionallity, maybe it should be called a “fiddle”. Yeah, I said that.)

Purchase a 2 inch threaded post from your local hardware or hobby store. (These are commonly used to act as bindings for scrapbooks in hobby stores). I also bought a 1″ extension to lengthen the fiddle (yeah, I’m going to run with it).

Taking a cordless drill, chuck the post in with the head sticking out. Using a sander or grinder, grind off the head, then taper it to a point. If using an extension, screw the two pieces together and again using the drill to spin it against an abrasive, smooth the connection point. The smoother the fiddle is, the better it will slide through your knots.
I promise it takes far longer to explain than to do it. Watch this video to see me making one.

Here I am threading the fiddle:

That’s all there is to it! I made three of these in far less time than it took me to write this up. Zach & Mr. Mike get my spares, they are paracord fiends. Now the rest of you go make one for yourself, and try your hand at a Turk’s Head knot.

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