Is there a safe way to tie a paracord lanyard?

Paracord has a nominal strength of about 550 lb. As such, many lanyards are a safety nightmare.

Assuming that my assumption that lanyard's primary purpose is to reduce the risk of loosing a tool (such as a knife) when using it, it SHOULD break-away when unusual forces are applied, say tool getting caught in machinery.

I prefer to use paracord as my lanyard for its multipurpose roles. My current solution to avoid getting killed is to tie the loop with thin string around the two ends. The string would be the point of failure.

Is there such a things a very WEAK bend or hitch such that it would fail prematurely? Most bends/hitches try to MAXIMIZE the reliability. My current favorite hitch is a constrictor, which pretty much needs to be cut off. My current favorite bend is the Zeppelin bend which is highly reliable.

My least favorite bend right now is the sheetbend and my least favorite hitch is the clove hitch. Both have failed on me in the past but unfortunately can not be relied upon to fail when my tool gets caught in something.

Thanks.
Conway Yee

There are a couple of ways you could use a small home made S hook to join the paracord...

1. tie an end to each side
2. capture a knot in each end of the S

Here's how the hooks were made

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NoKutkIWvE&feature=player_embedded#!

I leave the ends loose and use a cordlock, so they can slip out under enough force.

I like glove hooks, two reversed like you would carabiners.

lots of places to get em. glove hook Here is one.

I use magnetic clasps. You'll want to glue them into the ends of the paracord.

I have heard of cutting the cord and inserting a short piece of shrink-to-fit tubing. Never tried it, though.

On the military and police style pistol lanyards a small split-ring like a key ring is used as the engineered failure point to break away if the item becomes entangled.

These rings are 1/4 to 1/8th inch in diameter and tend to have a small loop of 550 cord (about 4-5 inches long) tied between the item and split ring, then the split ring is attached to the lanyard.

I used to carry a Surefire Flashlight with wrist lanyard with no break away feature. I looped the lanyard around my thumb over the back of my hand and up the palm parallel to the flashlight body. The head of the flashlight stuck out the little finger side of my hand. If the flashlight ever got tangled I could open my grip and pull my hand free without the lanyard hanging up on my hand.

Hope this helps.
-joe

lighthound has black plastic breakaway connectors for use with paracord here.

Joe, just seeing if I understand what you're describing. It sounds like the split ring only keeps you safe if the item attached to the split ring is what gets pulled, not the lanyard itself. That is, does the main loop of the lanyard have a weak point in the arrangement you describe? It doesn't sound like it.

Edit: Re-reading it today, I realize that I was thinking of a loop you wear around your neck. But your example is more of a leash concept, I believe. So there's no loop that needs to give way.

Connect loops with an O-ring. Attach extra O-rings for ready replacement. This design works quite well, but improve it if you can and share!

I like that!

My experience with those breakaway fittings has been unsatisfactory. They break away too easily. I had to put a very small drop of superglue in them: they still pull apart, but not by themselves.

The shrink tubing became the strongest part of my lanyard! Not what I'd intended.

Now I lay the ends of the paracord together and sew them together with 3-4 stiches of very light cotton thread. Haven't had them come apart on their own, and I have tested that they will break when they should.

The end for the "leash" type it has a break away on the belt loop end as well.

Now THIS is an idea I can like! Thumbs up for simplicity and ease of adjustment: If you think it breaks too easily, just use thicker o-rings!

The glove hooks don't break, so are reusable.

irecon,

Great idea on the use of O-rings but I THINK your current implementation leaves the risk that BOTH ends of the line get caught since each end is hanging down with equipment. This leaves the remaining loop as a noose.

The O-ring needs to be away from the "stuff" that is being lanyarded and can be a weak point.

Conway Yee

Whichever method is used, that's a good point about the location of the breakaway spot.

You, my friend, discovered the design flaw. I was wondering if someone would see it. I will post a pic of a solution.

However, I don't see why you think the O-ring needs to be away from the stuff that is being lanyard. In a previous design, I had the O-ring up near my neck. No good, that position is annoying and doesn't give me ready access to inspecting the O-ring.

ireckon,

I'm afraid that the redesign has the same flaw. Someone or something can grab both ends of the line and you end up with a noose.

The best place for weak point is at the back of the lanyard where the wrist or neck sits (where it is highly unlikely that both ends can be grabbed, accidentally or deliberately).

If this is not comfortable, how about two-thirds of the way up on one side? Machinery and the like is not likely to grab things that far up.

I think the argument is along the lines of if a spinning piece of machinery catches both knotted ends of your landyard (very possible, since they are right next to each other) and yanks you, where's the failure point in this case? There is none.

Of course, anything that only pulls on one "side" of the lanyard will cause the loop to open and you're safe.

Edit: Beat me to it!

Good points! I'm glad I posted pics for me to improve my design...

Looks pretty hangman-proof to me now! Is that breakaway point right on the back of the neck, or did you offset it a bit? Can't quite tell from the photo.

It's centered on the back of the neck. Since that pic, I made the knots even smaller by using simple overhand slip loops at the O-ring.

Might I suggest replacing the knots with split rings? It will make for a flatter and more comfortable joint, and make o-ring replacement faster.

You should be able to get very small (6-9mm) split rings at any craft or fishing tackle store. Run about 1-2 inches of cord through the ring, fold it back on itself to make a 1/2 turn, and serve or whip the cord to itself to form an eye through the split ring. Use the paracord internal strands for whipping and use generic tacky glue or Beacon Fabri-tac on the whipping to make sure it won't unravel.

Not to re-ignite an old topic, but I built a lanyard with a 3/4" o-ring as the breakaway. It took about 15 to 20 lbs to snap the o-ring by itself. So, figure aout 30-50 lbs of force on the lanyard before it breaks free. While it won't rip your head off, I wouldn't place money on getting away injury free.

The breakaway buckle I scavenged from a Home Depot lanyard snapped at about a third of the force. I adapted it to a cord lanyard using d-rings, but in retrospect I also could have used a prusik knot.

Here are pics of a breakaway that includes a Double Overhand Noose (ABOK #409) clamped down on a bight. This is the first all-cord breakaway I've considered using. The bight is a simple trick but is necessary. Otherwise, the burned notch on the end gets caught in the noose, and then the breakaway is unreliable.

My solution -

Take one end of the line and tie a uni-knot (or any other form of slip-knot) over the other end of the line and then pull the line so that about an inch or so of line protrudes beyond the knot.

If there is a strong pull on the lanyard, it will pull through the uni-knot.

By pulling on the tag end of the knot, you can adjust the tension.

I've used this for years on lanyards I've used for duck calls and dog whistles and it's worked well.

If the above ideas don't work for you ... I went this more "commercial" route:

http://www.lighthound.com/Lanyard-Break-Away-Connector_p_737.html

This was a very helpful thread ... thanks for the ideas. I put a couple of them into practice and like the results so far:



First, I liked the idea of the small loop where the gear attaches to the lanyard. Second, I thought the idea of using clasps from gloves was brilliant. I found a one-piece clasp from an old pair of gloves and attached it to a couple small loops I made in the cord end.

In all, I think it is a definite improvement over the simple loop of cord I used previously.

one of these would work

http://www.niteize.com/product/S-Biner-KeyRing.asp

you get enough for six lanyards!

I think you are right, my wife has a bunch of these ... I might have to borrow one .

The only thing I'm wondering about is the strength. I'm guessing they are stronger than the plastic glove clasp, but would they be too strong given the desired "break away" functionality for a neck lanyard?