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- Nov 18, 2010
- Messages
- 6,118
I have a few knives with cord wrapped handles, but one of the most difficult aspects is finishing up in a low profile way that holds the cord wrap tight and doesn't get in the way. Finally figured out an answer yesterday and thought I would share it here.
There are tons of videos and threads and tutorials on cord wrapping a knife handle out there, I won't go into that, but when you end it, alot of those tutorials end with a square knot, and that didn't work for me. Too bulky, and when you melt it down you get a big plastic blob and that isn't any fun.
So, for this, you get a much smaller plastic blob, and with a little work that could be minimized even further than what I achieved here.
So, first up, wrap the handle however you do, then at the end, take your two cords coming from opposite directions and you need to clamp them tight, up against the handle as close as you can, like so:
Then flip it over if you have a hole like this knife, or not if you don't, but you want to get into the backside of where the two ends meet.
Insert a few drops of superglue, right at the base of where those two ends meet up. You want enough that they are joined very well. Then set it aside for awhile as the glue cures.
When it is done, unclamp the cord, and see if it is holding tight. If not, reglue, or reclamp after tightening again. If it is good and tight, cut off the excess cordage but leave a little under a quarter of an inch of cord for melting. The less you leave, the less of a blob you get, although that can be trimmed up if you like.
Once you have that done, take the fire to it, then use a flat piece of metal to squash it flat against the knife handle.
When you are done, you get a nice low profile termination of your cord wrap. Hope that helps, I didn't take any pics of it while I was doing it yesterday, but hopefully I have explained it well enough to help.
There are tons of videos and threads and tutorials on cord wrapping a knife handle out there, I won't go into that, but when you end it, alot of those tutorials end with a square knot, and that didn't work for me. Too bulky, and when you melt it down you get a big plastic blob and that isn't any fun.
So, for this, you get a much smaller plastic blob, and with a little work that could be minimized even further than what I achieved here.
So, first up, wrap the handle however you do, then at the end, take your two cords coming from opposite directions and you need to clamp them tight, up against the handle as close as you can, like so:
Then flip it over if you have a hole like this knife, or not if you don't, but you want to get into the backside of where the two ends meet.
Insert a few drops of superglue, right at the base of where those two ends meet up. You want enough that they are joined very well. Then set it aside for awhile as the glue cures.
When it is done, unclamp the cord, and see if it is holding tight. If not, reglue, or reclamp after tightening again. If it is good and tight, cut off the excess cordage but leave a little under a quarter of an inch of cord for melting. The less you leave, the less of a blob you get, although that can be trimmed up if you like.
Once you have that done, take the fire to it, then use a flat piece of metal to squash it flat against the knife handle.
When you are done, you get a nice low profile termination of your cord wrap. Hope that helps, I didn't take any pics of it while I was doing it yesterday, but hopefully I have explained it well enough to help.
