Leather Barbed Wire Tutorial

For the research of this tutorial, I experimented with various kinds of strings, cords and ribbons. These are the results. If you want your barbed wire to look like barbed wire, you will avoid anything that doesn't remotely look like leather, because it will likely have an aura of softness <-- we don't like!

There is however a surprising conclusion to this experiment. If you use a narrow ribbon, your barbed wire will seem a bit girly. And that is actually okay.

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As you can see, this bracelet doesn't require a lot of materials, although the rings and clamp might not be standard equipment:) But you should be able to find them at any craftstore, so no worries.

The string that I've chosen is some kind of treated cotton, that is stiff and somewhat leathery. Mostly, I chose it because we haven't got any real leather string and all the other string types I tried just sucked. But I think that you should try to find some decent leather string, and create some jewelery that looks great and is long lasting.

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First you need to determine where your barbed wire is going to be, and how long it should be. I have chosen a bracelet, because it is a bit easier to take pictures of.

I wrapped the cord two times around my wrist, loosely. Remember that the cord looses some length, due to the twisting and the bindings, so you should add a couple of cm in either end.

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When you have determined the desired length of the cord, you should double that and cut. As you can see on my picture, I have folded the cord to determine my overall length.

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The next step is to bind the end of the cord to a pencil or something similar. Just fasten the cord in anyway you choose. I've chosen a simple knot-"noose", as it is perfect for the task :)

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Argh... Get a look of those hairy feet! Well... The hazards of have two cats and carpets :)

Okay, now stop looking at my feet :) You need to secure the pencil and keep it from spinning while you are able to tighten the cord. Most of the time, I use my feet for this :)

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With the string attatched and secured, you should spin the cord. Spin, roll, turn or whatever you feel like calling it. Just make sure that you spin it (the same way!) enough so the cord will coil if you let it go.

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Now fold the cord in two. To prevent it from coiling in weird places, you should somehow make sure that the cord is stretched. I used my mouth as a fixed point to double the cord over.

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If you have spinned the cord enough, it should coil naturally when you double it over. Try to make the coil as even as possible. Your result should look somewhat like this.

If you have spinned the cord too much, the coil wont be even and you might have to start over (the spinning part, that is). If the cord doesn't coil enough, you haven't spun the cord enough.

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Now you have entered one of the few tricky parts of this tutorial. Closing up the endings is in theory quite simple. Making it look good is a bit more difficult.

Basically, you simply bind the two ends together using a reef knot. But you have to offset it, and make sure that it isn't tied in the end of the coil. You can achieve this by having one side of the knot a lot longer than the other and binding the knot. This way, some of the coils will be able to travel over the knot up to the end of the coil.

This step helps hiding the reef knot and adds a bit more stability to the knot. Another bonus is that the protruding end of the knot will add to the overall spikiness of the barbed wire.

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With you base wire (almost) finished, you should deside how many barbs you what on your wire. Then cut a number of 15 cm long cords equal to the number of barbs you want.

The length of the cords you cut doesn't have to be precise or even. Just cut them the length that you feel comfortable working with, as we are going to trim the length of the cords later on.

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Now for the second tricky stage in this tutorial. We'll start off nice and easy. Bend some of the 15 cm cord in two.

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Put the piece against the base wire, where you want your barb.

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And tie the knot like this :P  I find that winding the knot three times gives the best result. You could also use the clove hitch knot, but it isn't as stable as the noose knot, and (in my opinion) it doesn't look as much like real barbed wire.

The tricky part is keeping the knot tight when winding it around both the knot itself and the base wire. If at first you don't succeed, try practising the hangmans noose knot a bit. It is the same principle, except for some minor changes.

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Tighten the knot by pulling on the ends of the cord. Make sure it is nice and tight.

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And for the final part of the barb - cut the excess ends. The ends are what makes the barbed wire look barbed, so don't make them too short. But don't make them too long either as they will go floppy. And depending on what kind of string you are using, you could cut it oblique to sharpen the edge and make it seem even more spiky.

However, if you are using some kind of fiber string/cord then I would advice against cutting the edge oblique as it only means that it will shred more easily.

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Thus the barb is done. Attached to your wire and everything. Now you only have to attach the rest of the barbs :)

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With the rest of the barbs attached, your barbed wire is done. Now all you need is to attach the snap hook.

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I used some small rings attached in the ends and then the snap hook.

You could alternatively try to bind the ends of the cord though the end of the coil, when you're finishing up coiling the wire. But I haven't tested that one out. Hmm..

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And here is the closure of the wire. Nice, simple and discreet

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