Hi all, I am reaching out as I am part way through a project and am struggling with the final part. I have designed and created a keepsake box that will incorporate wood and rope.
As you can see I am at the stage where I need to choose a path for the rope that has a fixed route on the outside of the box and a yet undetermined route on the inside. I would like the inside to look pleasing to the eye and not cross over to maximise the space available in the box. I will start and end each piece of rope with an oak bracket which grips the rope on a solid part of the box.
The above illustration shows the rope path on the outside. I have tried drawing the inside path with a sharpie to no avail. Perhaps there is a mathematical solution to this or if anybody has any ideas for a starting point it would be much appreciated.
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I can secure multiple pieces if necessary but the fewer the better cosmetically because of the brackets.
Why don‘t you go all vertical through all lines and after the last line go around the horizontal lines ore vise versa?
BTW super cool looking already!
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No matter what, there will be diagonals and crisscrosses…what about installing some sort of lining to hide it?
I don’t want to hide it, I did consider this for a very short time but like the idea of seeing the raw nature of it. I am more than a little OCD and would at least want some symmetry. I tried all vertical and horizontal and doesn’t seem to work either.
Didn’t even think for a second that this would have been difficult at all so didn’t give it a second thought. Live and learn i guess 
came up with this for the lid, quite happy with it. The circles are the ends of 2 ropes where there is space for the end brackets.
I will experiment with that, the rope is 8mm and I don’t want the inside box part to be too large. Also don’t want there to be any visible difference on the outside of the box.
Lid finished, decided to use some copper pipe I had in for the straps. Love the finish.
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omg it took hours to thread all that rope. 11m down, 28m to go
I think your box looks pretty good without the rope! 
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do you have a fid? when i do complicated paracord stuff, i glue a short piece of a bamboo skewer into the end of the. gives you a handle to work with
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This is very new to me, thought you’d mistyped lid at first. I made the holes big enought that the rope fits through ok. The time consuming bit is pulling through the rope and ensuring it is tight. Fid is now part of my vocabulary though! 
Thank you for your kind words. I am always looking for inspiration for new ideas, great to give a little back when I can.
Yes, I have some 16mm rope for those to match.
I was going to use a copper strap to match the others but now I have researched the Matthew Walker knot I am having second thoughts 
Came up with this for the sides, not perfect but I think it will look reall good.
Feeling really nervous about trying the knots and only have a short piece of rope for the handles so not much to practice with. It will be the last part of the project so don’t have to decide yet.
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The ends of those 2 patterns is where it wraps around the corners which makes it more complex. So really it is 2 of each end to end.
It is finished, i’m going to take some photo’s this weekend as this project is intended for sale. I will post on my projects page for all to see with a few I took during the process.
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