About a week ago I was tying my shoes and the laces broke.
Now, I know what you’re going to say… “cool story bro!”, but I’m telling you this for a reason. I’m telling you this so that you too can have awesome, super strong, inexpensive 550 cord shoelaces.
This is so easy to do that I can’t really call this a full blown tutorial; I’m mostly writing to make you aware of this wonderful kind of shoelace, and to explain in a few words why you should give it a shot, and – spoiler alert – mention that it involves cutting a piece of 550 paracord and then burning the ends.
The Benefits of 550 Cord Shoelaces
Okay, I’m going to do this quick and dirty, just like your mom.
- They’re super strong and can probably support your weight, though I don’t recommend trying it. If you hurt yourself, please done sue me
- Paracord comes in a wide range of colors and is very inexpensive.
- If you find yourself in a survival situation, you’ll have a decent bit of paracord handy to make spears, build a hut, or live out your Survivorman fantasies.
Sounds pretty great, right? But wait, there’s more!
Here’s how you “make” 550 cord shoelaces.
- Buy 550 cord.
- Cut 550 cord to desired length. Note: You can measure your old lace length.
- Burn the ends with a lighter.
- Insert 550 cord shoelaces into your shoes.
- Profit.
And just in case this is too complicated for you, here’s a little video that shows the whole process, including a handy tip about forming the, uh… tip.
The biggest problem I had was with the tip, actually. It was just a bit too fat to easily slide through the eyelets, so I really had to force it through using a safety pin. If you follow this fellows advice, that won’t be the case, and you can save yourself about half an hour.
That… or you can just buy regular shoelaces, but what’s the fun in doing that?
So far I’ve been using these laces for just under a week, and they’ve held up great. I’ve seen mention of gutting the laces and sticking with the internal 7 strand fibers to avoid the laces “swelling” when wet, but I haven’t found that to be a problem, so I didn’t bother.
If you have any questions at all, don’t hesitate to leave me a comment. I know these aren’t all that complicated, but you know… it’s fun and exciting to talk about shoelaces on the internet.
