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