I'm not a survival nut, but I have a keen interest in being prepared. I'm sort of like an evil boy scout.
I recently saw a "survival bracelet," a wristband made of 550 paracord. The idea is if you need some cord in an emergency situation, just unravel it and you have several feet of very tough lashing material. I thought it was a cool idea so I made one. 10 feet made a very compact bracelet.
You know me, that was not good enough! I had an idea.
The parts: 100 feet of 550 cord, two stainless steel carabiners, and three stainless steel rings. Today we will make a survival belt!
Let's get started boys and girls!
Find the midpoint of the length of cord and loop it through the end ring so you have two equal tails.
If you are going to have some rings on the belt REMEMBER TO PUT THEM ON! I forgot and had to carefully slip the carabiners out to put them on.
The other end should run for the length you want the belt to be and tie the carabiner on. ADD SOME LENGTH because as you wrap it shortens the finished length a bit.
Run the left wrap cord under the core cords and over the right wrap cord.
And bring the right wrap cord across the core cords and under the left wrap cord.
And pull it real tight. The core cords are the foundation and the wrap should stack really tight. You will reverse the stitch on the next pass and alternate back and forth. This is commonly called a cobra stitch.
Once you get the hang of the stitch it goes pretty quick. As you can see, I added the second carabiner. The loose end will pass through both, over the right and back under the left. It's like a rigger's belt.
And we pass over the key rings. When it's done they are still flexible enough to run through belt loops but stand up on their own and it's easy to clip my keys on them.
The first run is done. I've used about 45 feet so far and this is a great belt as it is, but I ain't done....
Because now it's time to crown this cobra King! The king cobra stitch is simply a second pass of cobra stitch over the first one.
It's getting near the end and I am running out of cord!
All done! It's not that heavy and if I ever have a need for 98 feet of 550 cord, two 200lb test carabiners, and three steel rings I will be wearing it.
It's a good thing I used the whole length, because this is all I had left.
