How to Make a Basic Cobra Paracord Bracelet

	Paracord 550 / Nylon Parachute Cord 4mm - Black (16 Feet/4.8 Meters) SKU: XCR-4360 $4.20
	Sharp Flush Cutter Pliers - For Cutting Beading Wire (1 Piece) SKU: XTL-5600 $23.99
	Fiskars 5 Precision Tip Scissors - Super Sharp SKU: XTL-5700 $7.45
	Beadalon Large Beading Mats - Prevent Bead Rolling 13 X 18 Inch (Set of 2) SKU: XTL-9935 $6.75

Note: This audio transcript is auto-generated and may not be completely accurate.
Hi this is Megan with Beadaholique.com and today I'm going to show you 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 then the part that you pushed to light it, it does get very hot you might need to let it cool off. Don't let it cool off So once you have it all nice and sealed and it's not going anywhere then that is you're finished bracelet It's really simple and once you get it down it is really quick too.