DIY: Emergency/Survival Quick Release Paracord Lanyard

I made Shawn a quick release paracord lanyard. The purpose of this lanyard is to have rope for emergencies or survival in outdoor uses when you are backpacking, hiking, camping, etc. This rope is not intended for lifesaving purposes such as saving someone over the side of a cliff, but it does have a 550 pound breaking point.

Here are some uses that I got off of paracord.com:

• Emergency / Survival
• Shelter / Gear Tie Downs
• Fire Starter Bow
• Improvised Pace Counter
• Drag Line
• Safety Line
• Tunicate to Stop Bleeding
• Boot / Shoe Laces
• Clothes Line
• Food Hanging
• Improvised M.O.L.L.E. Repairs / Modifications
• Binding
• Trail Marking
• Spear Making
• Magazine Pulls
• Trip Wires
• Improvised Fishing Net

Visit the following page on paracord.com to see a description of 550 paracord: http://www.paracord.com/550-Paracord-Black_p_10.html

What you’ll need:

• 20 ft. of 550 paracord (you can find it at your local army surplus store)
• Carabiner
• Scissors
• Candle
• Piece of paper

Step #1: Burn your ends. Light a candle and carefully burn both ends so that they don’t fray.

Should look something like this:

Step #2: Tying your lanyard knot. Use a pencil or a pen to punch two holes in a piece of paper. My holes are about 2″ apart. UPDATE: See the link that is below the image with the paper. It will show you how to tie the knot. 

For how to tie the lanyard knot, please see the following link to watch a video tutorial by Homemade Gifts Made Easy: http://www.homemade-gifts-made-easy.com/lanyard-knot.html.

Step #3: Preparing to tie the main part of the lanyard. Let there be 7″ of paracord between the lanyard knot and the carabiner.

Step #4: Quick release stitch/weave/knot (I’m not really sure what it’s called).

I watched several different tutorials and read different instructions, and needless to say, it took me a LONG time to figure this knot out. Most of the video tutorials were facing such that it was up-side-down and backwards and just too hard to reverse. SOOO, I made my own video tutorial :-). I did a quick demonstration. The lanyard I create in the video is not as “perfect looking” as my first one, but it gets the idea across.

Step #5: Closer look at the tie off that I did on my original lanyard. If you have too much ends, just cut them and them again.

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