Finishing A Paracord Belt

I can't believe how long it's been since I finished a belt. Well, I just completed my second Derweesh Mark III paracord belt, and it reminded me of Goldilocks: my first one was too short, this one is too long. Hopefully the next one will be just right...

Well, at least I can actually wear this one. Last time I used eight spine strands, and as a result I had to change my weave at the end. This time I avoided the problem by using six spine strands and weaving through the spine "loops" instead of around them (if that makes any sense). I was using 550 Paracord, and the belt turned out to be 1.5" across; just narrow enough for a standard 1.75" buckle. If I had used eight spine strands I don't think it would have fit.

Nice big regularly-spaced holes.

All buckled up.

I had several comments in previous posts asking for more details about how to finish belts. It's hard for me to explain in words, so this time I took step-by-step photos.

First of all, it helps to have a pair of leatherworking needles that will work with your cord. They aren't necessary, but you might have a much harder time getting the cord through the loops on the last row without them.

Second, the key is to leave lots of slack when weaving the last row, then pull it tight afterwards. This makes it MUCH easier to fit the cord through the loops, as I will try to show in the photos.

This is the second-to-last row:

As you can see there's enough room left in the spine loop to pass the paracord through again:

However, we don't pull the cord tight, and leave a generous loop:

We continue weaving:

Always leaving loops rather than pulling tight:

When you pull the weave tight, the cords actually take up more room; by leaving plenty of slack we can actually pull the cords back to reveal gaps that we couldn't have used of we had tightened the weave:

Again, needles help a lot:

In this case I chose to continue the same pattern, but I didn't want to end with a loop-back step as it would have created a bit of a "forked tongue", so I used a crossover step:

This meant passing the cord through the center,

then around the other cord and back through the same hole:

Once the pattern is finished,

you can pull it all tight:

Then of course cut and melt the ends. Not the neatest melt job I've ever done, but oh well.

Well, there it is. It's a lot lot lighter and easier to use than my Slatt's belt. I might make a shorter one with a nicer buckle at some point, although I'm considering trying to weave a KBK Bar as thinner, lighter belt next.