Fid

I'm very new to paracord projects. But after making a couple items, and stumbling upon a youtube video showing a bracelet rig a guy made and him mentioning that the rig had places to store fids I realized that...I should get a fid!

So I went looking for one online. As the name BrokeWinger might imply I'm broke. Anyway I'm looking for a fid, and I'm coming across all these complaints of people ordering fids and when they get them they are tiny. The fids are to short and to narrow to work with 550 paracord.

Then I started coming across videos of people making their own out of aluminum draw posts for binding paper.

But they were still only coming up with fids that were a few inches long.

Being broke, makes me a bit of a tight wad. So I didn't want to buy a fid that was going to be to small, and making one that was only a few inches long didn't appeal to me either.

So I went rummaging through my junk. And found an old T-handle from a Hoppes rifle cleaning kit. I checked the threaded end and found that it was the perfect size for 550 paracord. seeing as how I no longer had the rest of the cleaning the T-handle rod was useless to me. So I clamped it in a vise and cut about 6 inches of the rod off. I then used a belt sander to taper the non threaded end then I chucked the cut off piece into a drill (threaded end into the drill).

Spinning the rod with the drill I used gradually finer pieces of sand paper to smooth out the taper. Then I used a buffing wheel to polish the whole piece.

I now have a 6 inch long aluminum fid.

So if you have any rods from a rifle cleaning kit laying around that you aren't using (like maybe one that you accidentally bent) You can make fids out of them

 

I have nothing against the shorter fids, or making them out of the binding posts. It's just for me, with my arthritic hands having a longer fid to get a good grip on is really nice. AQnd since it cost me exactly nothing but a little time and effort...even better.