First Attempt at a Cord Wrapped Handle

Mark J

Mark J

Joined
Mar 15, 2001
Messages
2,450
OK, here is my first attempt to do a cord-wrapped handle. What do you think? The cord was from a local sports outfitter in the area. I was rather surprised that the knife took 25 feet of cord, although it may make sense since it is double wrapped. I used a combination of the instructions on the Strider and Running Dog Knife sites to get the right technique. The cord is actually olive green. Sorry about the crummy pictures – I’ve got to invest in a good digital camera, but too many knives to buy right now
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knife1b.JPG

knife2b.JPG




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“Sometimes the first duty of a responsible man is restatement of the obvious.” – George Orwell
 
Nice! Did you pull out the inner material of the cord for the outer wrap? I thought I heard somewhere that some company does that. Anyway, nice job.

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John Gonzalez
Exclusive Dealer
Mineral Mountain Hatchet Works
 
John,

Thanks for the comment. I used the Strider trick and first put half of the cord (13 ft. or so) through the two holes in the tang. Check out their site and you'll see what I mean. Then I wrapped the entire tang using the other half of the cord (12 ft.) and the Running Dog flat wrap technique. At this point the two ends of the first cord stick out of the top of the flat wrap nearest the blade. I then started doing a diamond (?) wrap pattern with the two ends, overtop of the flat wrap. Tuck it in all nice and neat, add a dab of superglue, and there ya go. Only took about an hour for the whole thing, so it's even approachable for a rookie like me.

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“Sometimes the first duty of a responsible man is restatement of the obvious.” – George Orwell
 
That's a great looking job, Mark! I'm amazed to learn that it required 25 ft. Is that "paracord" or a smaller diameter cord? Heck, what diameter is paracord?

Been thinking of doing a bit of this -- though I doubt am able -- and had wondered how much cord was needed. Wow!

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Asi es la vida

Bugs
 
An hour for your first wrap!? Darn good wrap, and almost no time for a first timer. Heck, it took me 45 minutes tonight to braid a black leather lanyard for my CQC7, and it's not even that good.
 
having stumbled around wit the strider wrap myself I woud liek to say that you dida good job.. the knots lok een and more imortantly tight! =).. very tricky in a handle with cruves liek that.. good job. it get addicting =)



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Does anyone have a link to the exact page the cord wrapping instructions are on? The I couldn't find it on the Strider site. Thank you in advance.
 
Did you, or are you, going to coat the wrapping?? In the past I've used Elmer's glue for a coating. Doesn't work as well as epoxy, but it does work.


Blades
 
Here is the Running Dog site.

http://runningdogknife.homestead.com/cordwrap.html

I tried to refind the other site, but without any luck. The page must have been moved. Here is the URL for any of you detectives who want to try and relocate it.

wysiwyg://1/http://www.geocities.com/ralfh.geo/Strider.html

As to the epoxy, I really hadn't thought about it. I want the ability to take the cord off in an emergency and use it, so I'm not sure if the epoxy would mess up that idea. Anybody know?

- Mark
 
Looks great! What kind of knife are we looking at here? Did it start with scales that you replaced with the cord?

Also, I was thinking about doing this with an Arc-lite. Anyone have any pointers I should be aware of???

Doug
 
Mark J,

Thanks much for that link to the running dog instructions for cord wrapping.

I have seen the Strider pics for cord wrapping, and frankly, I could not quite figure out how it was done...maybe I'm just dim I guess.

Anyway, the running dog pics are very clear, and I have now cord wrapped my Greco SpearPoint, in about 45 minutes. The diamonds are a bit skewed, but this first wrap was only a practice run, using nylon twine.
With some good 550 cord, I know I could get a much tighter wrap, and now I know I can get the diamonds centered as well. Also, by using the cheap nylon twine, I now know approximately how much 550 cord I need to get the job done.
 
thanks for the links, all.. now wrapping my practice blades will have a whole new aspect... heheheheh..

great job with the wrap, mark. the double-wrap is sweeet. looks mighty tight.

cheers,
steve
 
My first attempt.....errrrrr....well....nevermind!! :(

You really did a nice job Mark!!! Looks great!


"Hunters seek what they [WANT].., Seekers hunt what they [NEED]"
 
Thanks everyone. Hey sometimes things work out just right (we won't talk about the other times :rolleyes: )

Doug: The knife was from Texas Knifemakers Supply. It's ATS-34, chisel ground, tanto. A "big chunk o' steel". Only put me back about $40-$45, if I remember correctly. I think they've replaced this version with one that is 440C. It never had any scales -- I purposely bought the knife to try the cord wrapped handle.

One hint. The back of the handle had a very smooth arc, so the cord would have slipped down. I used my dremel (Oh no! not the dreaded "D" word ;) ) and put a notch in the edge of the handle to hold the cord. It's basically the same thing they show on the Running Dog site, except I only put one deep notch instead of three shallow ones. Worked really well.

- Mark

Edited to add this:

I finally got my ISP FTP account up and running, so here's a really big picture of the handle (much better than the ones above!)

http://tpg1.home.mindspring.com/Handle.jpg

and this:

Here is the Strider site with the cord wrapping technique.

http://www.striderknives.com/html/handlerapping.html
 
That's why I like the Elmer's glue. It gives it some hardness, but can be removed easier than epoxy.


Blades
 
You can also use Military issue boot lace for a slightly less bulky, but much more aggresive grip (see my first cord wrapped handle on a Livesay Woo).

woo.jpg


:)
 
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