How to Make a Basic Cobra Paracord Bracelet

with a plastic buckle

and

it's going to be just a

very simple basic

version. There's a lot of different ways to do this. I'm just going to show you

the most basic simple one

So a few things

you'll need

a basic disposable lighter. Don't use a micro torch for this. It'll burn

right through. It'll burn up your

nylon cord

you do want to use your basic disposable cheap lighter

you can also

it's really handy. You can use the side of the lighter where it's smooth to smooth out

the ends when you're

finishing off

the bracelet

which will

get the lighter kinda funky so use the cheap

little disposables

and then you'll need

your parachute cord

or paracord

this is a two colored

project like this one

so I'm using

two lengths

one of each color

and then you're gonna need these little plastic

buckles

and this is the .6 inch

so .6 inch is the size and this is the

perfect size for

doing a

basically the two strand core with the two strands on the outsides. So you're

super basic one is going to fit perfectly

on the .6

You need something pretty strong to cut through the paracord. I'm using flush cutters

because I found that my

little scissors where a little wimpy. If you have stronger bigger scissors that

work fine

when you are cutting

your paracord you're going to want

to cut about a foot of paracord for each inch

of knotting that you want

and

as far as how much knotting you'll want

your clasp, this buckle will add about two inches when it's closed

from here to here

and then you also because it's thicker you wanna add about an inch

to your desired measurements

for what your wrist measurement is

so my wrist is about six inches. I wanted my bracelet to be seven inches which

means I only want five inches

of knotting from clasp to clasp

because plus the two for the clasps

gives me seven inches

nice and snug

I went ahead and cut

six-foot lengths

of my paracord

just to get myself a little more of my paracord

so

one thing that you'll need to know how to do

is how to join

two the cords together

first thing

what you're going to do is take

your buckle

separate it

these will go through

the top of edge

the male

half of your buckle

take

one of your

short cords, center cords. Pull it a little longer

you're going to give yourself a little bit of a tail

bring it through

the female end of the buckle. Don't pull it all the way out

and tie a lark head's knot by

pulling the ends through the loop

pull the other buckle on the other

string and everything

all the way through

Pull that tight to attach it

you take

you cords

we want to attach

this end of this cord to this tail on this one so that we have one piece so

you get the two color

cord piece going up the middle

now there a couple of different ways to attach

your cords to fuse them together

you can just trim both ends heat them with a lighter and try to smoosh them together

I like to kind of make a

male and female fit together kind of a joint

trim down

this tail here. We want this joint to be close to the buckle

and it is gonna take a little bit of it

to do the joint and you do you want to join to be high up enough inside

the knotting

that it is encased in the knotting to make it strong so

give yourself about an inch and a half or so

inch and a quarter

trim that down

so you're gonna pull down

the outside of your cord and have the core threads

exposed

and cut off about

three quarters of an inch

and then you pull

your cord backup

and now you want the end

that's going in there to be

a clean end

and it helps if you have it already

fused a little too itself. So you just

hold it

in the flame

and you'll see it get dark and you can see it melt

you can

push it against the side of the lighter. Be careful when you have it

melted because that will burn you if you touch it. It's very hot so make sure you

let it cool off before you touch it

and now you have this piece here and it's hard so will be easier to settle it

in

so you can see that the top here is hollow because we cut out the core threads

take this

piece

and twist it and shove it into the top here

if these ends get frayed that's fine

when you fuse it, it would just give it more

to fuse onto

take that joint

be careful not to get stray cords in front of the flame when you're doing this

it will get

melty

get ruined

just

turn the joint

fuse it together

and don't

melt it to the point that you're

going to melt right through it

get a good solid fuse on it so that those are really

solidly connected

so next you're going to

decide the length

this way

so as I said you want

your bracelet to be an inch longer than your wrist measurement and your clasp adds

two inches

I'm going to use this one as a guide

I already did that one. I know it fits me

from my seven-inch bracelet

and now I want

the middle from the end to the end

from where the plastics starts where the plastic stops to be a

about about five inches

now

that basic knot

in the

super basic

paracord bracelet is a macrame square knot

it's also in paracord is called a cobra knot

it's the same thing as a macrame square knot. So I

have showed you how to do that in video before

I'm going to go over again here

I'm going to

take your cord

it's a little tricky to work with six inch pieces. Have to get used to it

so you're going to take your left

strand

bring it over the center strands

take your right strand

bring it over

the tail of the left hand

and then bring it behind and up through the loop

pull both sides

Then you're going to

do

the opposite so you're going to take the left and go under

the center

take the right stand under the left

and then bring it over into the loop

again it's going to be

left over

right over

under through

left under

right under

over and through

and I always like to think that it's just over

over under through

and then

under

under over through

if you make sure that you alternate them you will get a nice

flat piece if you don t alternate them they will twist. So if you see it's going to

twist

and you don't have the same color

down the sides you're forgetting to alternate

so again it's over

over

under through

under

under over through

you're going to repeat that

until you get to the end here

when you get all the way down

to your other clasp

you're done

you can see that it depends a lot on how tight you're doing your knotting and everything

you will have

extra cord

you can do smaller projects like key chains and stuff with your scraps but

as you work you will get

more of a feel for how long

You need

to cut your cords

per how many inches so

as you can see

I did six-feet

if I did five inches

I'd still have a couple feet left over

so it's kind of a

guessing game because a lot of it has to do with the tension

if you use

a looser

then you will

use less cord. If you do you're knotting tighter you will use more cord

so pull your last knot really nice and tight

then you're going to cut off

the extra

why you want that knot tight

leave yourself

just a little bit

of cord

maybe

an 1/8 of an inch there

or just slightly longer

the way finished this is the same way that you fuse it. You're going to melt it.

and this is when you use the side of your lighter

you're gonna

light the lighter

and you're gonna hold it

to the end

of your cord

and you're gonna let it melt

until the whole extra tip

looks like it's

melty

and then really quickly you're going to squish it

at the edge of the lighter

you can see what this does, it's going to expand

the end

it's going fuse to the edges around here

the idea being

it's only secure if it doesn't pop back through that knot right there

so by making it bigger and by fusing it to the edges around here it's going to

keep it secure and keep it from popping through it

and like I said you will get

goop

on your lighter. Wait that you let it cool off right away and you can scratch some of it off

but that's why you don't use

grandpa's zipper from WWII

Once more

hold it on there

let it get all melty

smooth it out

if you don't get it all nice and smooth the first time you can reheat it

and go back and smooth it out

just be careful if you've had the lighter

lit for a little bit