Paracord Wrapping Handles?

T

TSilant

Joined
Apr 1, 2013
Messages
87
I... think this is a general purpose question. Moving on!

Ill try and sort these a bit.
1: What are the benefits of paracording a handle?
2: Can you paracord any handle, or does it need to fit certain parameters? I imagine youd need it to have a fingerguard at the top, but besides that?
3: How many ft of paracord go into paracording a handle (so that i know how long 100ft would last if i went on a theoretical paracord rampage which im definitely not plotting as i ask if itd be viable)?
4: If i paracorded my knife blade, would it slowly sharpen the knife as it rubbed against it from everyday movement, resulting in a razor sharp blade surpassing its sharpener nemesis? : )
 
The knife pretty much has to have a lanyard hole near the butt of the handle. It's nice if it has a hole near the finger guard as well. A regular sized knife with a 4-5" handle will take 6-8' of cord for a single wrap. Strider does a "gutted" wrap then does the twist knots. I wouldn't know how to do it if I hadn't taken a few of them off... which I did only to learn how to do it. Surely there are tutorials on YouTube how to do it? Two good tips I can give you are get the cord soaking wet and stretch it a bit & keep the cord wet while working. When it dries it will shrink and you'll get a really tight handle wrap.
 
Welp, all the ones i wanna wrap have lanyard holes, so i think im golden!
Thanks for the tips as well, saves some trial and error.

Now to go youtube how one actually does it...
 
My Izula II is wrapped. It makes the overall package much slimmer, which I find works well for such a knife. The downside is that Paracord doesn't repel blood, sweat, foodstuff, etc., but it's easy and cheap to put a new wrap on it every so often, so I don't mind.
 
I forgot to mention that for best results also protect the blade with cardboard or something and either clamp it in a bench vise or screw two short boards together with the blade clamped between them. You'll be able to get the cord much tighter and be much less likely to cut yourself.
 
TSilant said:
4: If i paracorded my knife blade, would it slowly sharpen the knife as it rubbed against it from everyday movement, resulting in a razor sharp blade surpassing its sharpener nemesis? : )
Click to expand...

What are you trying to say here?
 
I had to paracord wrap a Hoffman Harpoon I bought on the secondary market without the wrappings its easy enough just make sure the blade is clamped down as for how many feet of cord it would depend on the length, width, and thickness of the handle I think I used about 5ft on my harpoon but that handle is very thin and not very wide so yeah it varies.

As for benefits if you paracord a handle if for say you were ever in a survival situation you would have that much more cordage on you than if you hadn't also if you paracord wrap a handle and it gets damaged its easy and cheap to replace the wrappings not to mention a paracord handle looks very tacti-cool :cool:.
 
CWL said:
What are you trying to say here?
Click to expand...

Its an epic struggle.

exile82187 said:
I had to paracord wrap a Hoffman Harpoon I bought on the secondary market without the wrappings its easy enough just make sure the blade is clamped down as for how many feet of cord it would depend on the length, width, and thickness of the handle I think I used about 5ft on my harpoon but that handle is very thin and not very wide so yeah it varies.

As for benefits if you paracord a handle if for say you were ever in a survival situation you would have that much more cordage on you than if you hadn't also if you paracord wrap a handle and it gets damaged its easy and cheap to replace the wrappings not to mention a paracord handle looks very tacti-cool :cool:.
Click to expand...

Sounds good. Except im going more for a bit more grip than tacti-cool. :)
 
Clean some fish with that para-wrapped knife, then go sit in the sun for a while. Then come back and tell us if para's such a great solution.
 
well it will help grip but like CWL said it will smell funky after cleaning fish but if you don't plan on fish cleaning with it or anything of the sort, it might not suck I liked it on my Hoffman Harpoon.
 
I'm not a fan of (unsealed) para handles because they will absorb all manner of moisture, blood, scum, dirt and junk and keep that germ infested mess right next to your hands.

Not my idea of a clean or useful tool.
 
True, but the beuaty of paracord is its cheap for $50 you can get 1000ft of olive drab paracord, I may be pushing paracord cause I have been watching a lot of Bear Grylls and Les Stroud lately :D.
 
but yeah there will be up sides and downsides to whichever method you choose you just have to decide which downsides you can live with and which upsides you can't live without.
 
archieblue said:
Two good tips I can give you are get the cord soaking wet and stretch it a bit & keep the cord wet while working. When it dries it will shrink and you'll get a really tight handle wrap.
Click to expand...
+1
Also, depends if you just want to wrap it round or do a cobra weave like the Ezee Izula handle.
 
CWL said:
Clean some fish with that para-wrapped knife, then go sit in the sun for a while. Then come back and tell us if para's such a great solution.
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I get what youre saying. Im not sure if i care or not - Ill think about it, either way. Paracords cheap, its not exactly an investment.
 
CWL said:
Clean some fish with that para-wrapped knife, then go sit in the sun for a while. Then come back and tell us if para's such a great solution.
Click to expand...

Right! That's one of my issues with cord-wrapped handles, too. It's not about the cost of replacing the cord, it's about filth and germs. Gross!

If you just want the nice texture, that's one thing; it's pretty easy to soak the cord in epoxy, super-glue, wood hardener etc. to seal it up after it's wrapped. :thumbup:

For those that "need" an extra couple feet of paracord on their knife handle, that they can easily get off and use in a crisis... IMHO it's a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. You now have a mere few feet of (probably filthy) cord, and an uncomfortable knife handle. You're much better off with a 20' length of cord in a zip-lock in your pocket, or even wrapped around the sheath and sealed off with suitable tape. Or check these ideas out:

[video=youtube;mJ1g7peMXKM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ1g7peMXKM&list=PLnPNd4JJU-HdozKS23FXUIb_xrk0cIYUn[/video]

[video=youtube;ym6cxD_gnJE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ym6cxD_gnJE[/video]
 
Great discussion!

I wouldn't use an ivory handled knife to clean fish or clean a deer with a SAK, it's all about purpose driven design.

I like a removable cord wrap when I want to get a knife very clean, remove the wrap and it can be really scrubbed down.

Survival Use? Not likely but why not be prepared? It is fun changing out the cord if you want a different colored knife and it is there when you need it. I have gone fishing and forgotten my stringer, that is a good use for the cord.

Are removable paracord wraps the be all, end all handle solution? No way! They do excel at their purpose and that is the kind of knife I want.
 
I was infatuated with paracord handles for a while.

But after using a paracord wrapped knife handle for hard use, you quickly find out, that cord is very uncomfortable - at least to the unprotected hand. A glued paracord handle is even worse.

Further more blood and guts in the cord is an outright Health hazard. This can be alleviated by unwrapping the cord and washing it after each outing, where the cord gets small bits of organic matter in between the different strands of the cord.
That quickly gets annoying (to have to unwrap, wash and re-wrap the handle after each use).

Personally, Im fed up with paracord handles and prefer not to have them on hard use knives.

Just say NO to paracord wrapped handles on hard-use knives.

I guess, that some people find it cool to have paracord around the knife handle and think, theyll use it in an emergency.
But how many really have a need for that.

Id go out on a limb and claim, that if you have to resort to unwrapping your cord knife handle, you came ill prepared.

On outings, I carry lengths of braided paracord for various uses - when gutting a deer or dragging out a deer from undergrowth or what ever.
Paracord is very useful, but I dont see a need to wrap my knife handles with it - at least in regards to hard-use knives.

As can be seen below - paracord can get messy and its not not very hygenic

Splitting Wood with a paracord wrapped knife is not very comfortable - especially, if its a small knife, like the one I used in the pic below. You really have to hang on to the handle on that one. Not a knife, that you would usually use for splitting wood, but it illustrates my point.

















 
A length of inner tube can be slipped over the paracord. It might be a bit easier on the hand and makes for a marginally less messy paracord but makes for less friction on the handle when hte rubber is real messy with gore. Thats a bad thing.

 
BladeScout said:
A length of inner tube can be slipped over the paracord.
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That makes sense, in an extremely limited way. That does mitigate some of the shortcomings of a para-cord-wrapped handle... while making it even more difficult to access the ONLY sane reason for an un-sealed cord-wrap on a knife handle, which is to have 6-10 of cord readily-available.

I say again, I would rather leave my knife alone and dip into my pocket/pack or unwrap 20-feet of paracord from my sheath or boonie hat, than end up up standing there like a nitwit with a knife that's difficult to hold onto, and a very short length of cord that may or may not be soaked-through with God-knows-what.
 
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