Surefire Lanyard Knot

After reading a thread in the Cafe on lanyard materials, I got to thinking about putting a lanyard on my A2. But I didn't want to stick a split ring through the belt clip because then you can't hang the light in a useful orientation. They have that handy turn-down near the tailcap...maybe a nice simmetrical knot would do the trick?

Well, a kind fellow over on rec.crafts.knots helped me find the answer, I think. For those of you who have Ashley's book of Knots, it is #787, the knife lanyard knot. It seems to work pretty well, and is fairly easy to untie if necessary yet should be secure enough for most purposes. It seems to require cord that is 2-3mm or smaller, though.

If folks are interested, I'll see if I can take some pics...

Ok, here are some pics:


I left the ends dangling, and yes the cord is purple - it was the only color REI had ;-(.

The pic below should give enough info to tie the knot - the body of the light goes through the hole in the center of the knot. By pulling on the ends you'll soon get the hang of getting it tight and centered - pull on the ends that form the loop to really tighten.

... but I'm assuming you can't fire-up the A2 with that lanyard attached.

Not true - only the black rubber button is depressed. The knot is tied around a turned-down section in the aluminum well below the button. The knot doesn't inhibit operation.

Seems like a good idea, but will the lanyard comes off easily? Don't want to drop and break the lamp assembly /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

That's a good question. I think it's secure enough for my purposes, but it's fairly easy to untie. It does not respond to some loads well, but it's hard to explain. If you pull in the direction of the tangent on the curve of the ring the knot forms, on one side only, it loosens pretty quickly but not so bad it would fail. One solution would be to tie the lose ends onto the other strands with a half hitch or two. That should make it pretty secure.

Keep in mind the cord I shot in the pics is 3mm accessory cord, I've got 2mm on it now and it is much better.

I wanted to be able to do this so I could hang it from the peak of a tent with a beam shaper on it - should work well enough for that.

I'd simply take a piece of cord to make a lanyard and take each working end and tie a double overhand knot around the opposite ends standing portion, forming a small loop and two slip knots opposite each other. It is basically a Double fisherman or "grinners" knot only you are not joining two seperate cords just the ends of one then before sliding the two knots together you slip the mouth between the knots around the light's groove then tighten. I use this type of lanyard to carry litre water bottles by slipping them over the bottle neck ring and tightening. Some folks use this same knot as a length adjustment feature on lanyards, I just make the lanyard the length I like.

Later,
TSG /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif