Making rope handles with a single 550 cord

Sun Mar 23 2008

I saw the instructions for this on the internet and figured I would give it a try. I was not about to buy a French Knitting Spool so I made one with some spare parts (a PVC fitting, some chop sticks and some twine). I read that the braid (knit) could be done with
two or more posts along the spool, so I started with 3, it worked easily so I added more pegs to end up with six. At that point I glued the pegs in place so the knitting spool stays together for a while. This process could be useful occasionally

	The website I saw this on used the braid 9knit) to wrap key rings and straps
	I used a PVC fitting (coupler) and a few chop sticks and lashed them to the fitting to make the knitting spool. I started with three to see what that braid looked like
	I just snipped the chopsticks in half, then used the side of the grinding wheel to round them off
	I used 5 sticks which is about the most for this size pipe and 550 cord. it was getting a little tight
	Using three sticks to do a three sided braid
	There are plenty of tutorials on how to do this, so I won't recreate them here. But this size spool worked well for me in one hand. I used one of my awls instead of a knitting needle
	Once pulled off the spool you can see the symmetrical three sided braid the spool produces
	a few more shots of the three sided braid
	I decided to pull it apart to do the four fingered knitting spool. The first one started to fall apart. So I tied the second version much tighter and used neater lashings/ This proved to work better and they stayed tight after a few uses
	Once the first set of lashings are in place the second set is easier to tie
	A few more shots of the four fingered knitting spool
	Still plenty of room for four strands of 550 cord
	Pulled from the four peg spool
	The four sided braid has an inner cavity wide enough to hold a pen when making a handle, a length of dowel or a bolt could be inserted and tied inside
	Before modifying the spool I tried a braid with just two pegs. It makes a very tight four sided braid that the awl or a nail could fit inside for a handle
	After a few uses with four pegs the pegs starred to shift, so I left them tied and added a fifth peg with two more lashings around all five pegs (chopsticks)
	The five sided braid being created with the spool
	A close up of the braid made with five pegs
	Since this seemed like a good design so far I used super glue on the intersections to 'lock' the pegs into place on the spool. This worked well, and I have done a few more projects since. The pegs do not need to be perfect for a symmetrical braid, that is a result of the tension and work with the awl (hook)