Introduction: How to Make a Two Color Survival Bracelet

By AnthVale
About: I have a great passion for cooking, crafting, fixing, or building stuff!

Throughout this Instructable I will show you how to make a 2 color survival bracelet with a buckle. When finished, depending on your wrist size, the bracelet will unravel into 2 equal lengths of paracord each measuring roughly 5-6 ft. long.

Step 1: What You’ll Need.

• 2 separate colors of paracord. Find on Amazon: Here
• Scissors
• Lighter
• Plastic side release buckle. Find on Amazon: Here
• Ruler/tape measure
• Scotch Tape/Binder clips work really well too.

Step 2: Measuring Your Wrist

1. Wrap a string or rope around your wrist and make sure it's nice and snug.
2. With a marker, make a line directly across the strings/ropes. See next image below for example.
3. I’ve darkened the lines in a photo editing software so you can see an example in part 3 of the diagram.
4. Now straighten out your string/rope and measure from mark to mark. I drew lines on the piece of paper underneath to help show my marks. My wrist is an 8" wrist as shown below.

Step 3: Cutting Your Cord, and Melting Ends.

• Cut two equal 4 ft. pieces of paracord, one of each color.
• Once this is done you must melt the ends so they don’t fray.
• If the internal string, or the “guts” of the cord is exposed a bit, simply cut about a centimeter of the cord off at the end to enable a clean burn.
1. With your lighter, apply the flame for about 3-4 seconds rotating the cord to get an even burn.
2. Once the end is beginning to melt with your fingertips or some pliers squeeze down so it becomes somewhat flat. This will help you when threading your cord through your buckles.

Step 4: Sliding Both Buckle Halves Onto the Cord.

• Put cords together and feed buckle part B on as shown in part 1 of the diagram. Make sure the Side release buckle is arcing the right way. Buckle part B arcs outward to the right in part 1 of the diagram.
• Slide buckle part A onto the cord as shown in part 2 of the diagram. Again, make sure that the buckle part A arcs the correct way. Buckle part A arcs outward to the left in part 2 of the diagram.
• Make sure you slide the cord through the bottom slit of buckle part A. An example is shown in the bottom right image of the diagram.
• Leave about 1 inch of excess cord after buckle part A. This is shown in part 2 of the diagram.

Step 5: Temporary Step: Taping the Excess Cord.

• This is TEMPORARY to help insure your bracelet is the right size when finished.
• Fold over the excess cord onto the existing cord and tape them together like shown in the image.

Step 6: Measuring to Insure Your Bracelet Ends Up Being the Right Size

• As you can see buckle part A is on the left, and buckle part B is on the right.
• When measuring here add 1” to the total measurement you got when measuring your wrist size.
• For the example in this diagram, my wrist measured in at 7.5”, so I’m measuring the cord to be 8.5” long.
• I’ve drawn lines to show you exactly where to measure. Notice you are not measuring from the end of buckle part A.

Step 7: Starting Your First Cobra Braid

• In the diagram we are working with the inside of the bracelet facing us.  (The inside is the side that is against your wrist when you’re wearing it.)
• The “Middle Color”, like shown in the diagram, is different on the inside of the bracelet then it is on the outside of the bracelet.
• In this example we have our “gun metal grey” as the “middle color” on the inside of the bracelet, and the “blue” is the “middle color” on the outside of the bracelet. (The part that everyone sees!!!)
• On the bottom of the diagram there’s an example of the inside of the bracelet we are making in the diagram.

1. In part one of the diagram, we take the blue cord and put it under the bracelet cords. This means that the outside “middle color” is going to be “blue”, like stated above.  If you want the outside “middle color” to be “gun metal grey”, then you would begin by putting the “gun metal grey” cord under the bracelet cords.
2. In part 2 take the second cord and go under the first cord and over the bracelet cords.
3. In part 3 of the diagram, take the second cord and pull it through the loop that was created in part one of the diagram.
4. In the 4th and final part of the diagram, simply tighten the braid up to the buckle.

Step 8: Weaving Your Second Cobra Braid

• In this step we simply repeat step 7 except reversed.

1. In part 1 of the diagram take the blue cord and put it under the bracelet cords.
2. In part 2 of the diagram take the second cord and go under the first cord and over the bracelet cords.
3. In part 3 of the diagram, take the second cord and pull it through the loop that was created in part one of the diagram.
4. In the 4th and final part of this diagram, simply tighten the braid up to the first braid.

Step 9: Optional Step. Pulling Bracelet for Slack.

• This step is optional but is crucial if you want the most cord possible on your survival bracelet.
1. As you can see in the first box of the diagram, sometimes you’ll end up with some leftover slack.
2. With one hand, hold the buckle and the 1” of excess cord (so it doesn’t slip out) and with the other hand grab the end of the last braid you did and pull back on it. (the way the arrow shows in part 2 of the diagram.)
3. As you can see in part 3 of the diagram there’s much more room to keep braiding, enabling you to use all you cord and get the most out of it.

Step 10: Braiding the Cord Over the 1” Excess Cord.

1. Once you get to the tape, take the tape off.
2. Holding the excess cord against the bracelet cords.
3. Braid over the excess cord right up to the buckle.

Step 11: Finishing Touches

1. In the first part of the diagram you can see we are working on the top part of the bracelet. From the top, feed the leftover cord through the remaining slit in the buckle (buckle part A).
2. You are going to lift/pull one of the cords out to use in part 4, part 2 shows you which cord to pull on. We are currently working on the inside of the bracelet.
3. In part 3 of the diagram, it also shows you which cord to pull, and where to pull it.
4. Pull the remaining cord through the loop that was created in part 3 of the diagram.

Step 12: Tightening the End

1. In part 1 in the diagram, pull in the direction of the arrow to tighten the last cord around the remaining cord.
2. Example of tightened cord.
3. With your thumb hold onto the tightened cord, and pull the remaining cord to pull the rest of the slack through.
4. Example of all slack pulled through.

Step 13: Cut/Melt Remaining Cord

• Cut the remaining cord off leaving roughly 3/8”-1/4”.
• Use lighter to melt down all fraying cord, and then flatten the cord with fingers or pliers.

Step 14: You're Done!

Thanks for reading my Instructable and I hope you enjoyed it!