Wood Badge Woggle cup holder

What Wood Badge staffer doesn’t need a good place for their coffee cup? Below is one of my favorite staff gift ideas: a hand-made cup holder. What it is is a cord to hook your cup to your belt. The style I’d recommend is exactly a Wood Badge Woggle, modified (See those on the left-hand side of Figure 1). As you can see, they are all “button knots” on a bight. Those on the right-hand side of Figure 1 are a money-fist on a bight. By “on a bight” I just mean that you’ve buried the ends and pulled a bend out. It’s pretty easy to tie—I made 30 in a few days—and nothing says Thanks! like something you did yourself. It’s useful—no more wondering where you put your cup down.

Figure 1: Two different styles

[click the image if you want a full-size picture]

How to tie a Wood Badge Woggle cup holder

Your leather woggle is a four-bight two-lead turk’s-head. Many courses use a five-bight two-lead turk’s head, but it doesn’t matter.

Basically, tie a woggle any way you want and study it a bit. I’ll refer to the hole that the ends stick out of as the “bottom”; go to the other side, the “top” and choose one cord and keep pulling on it and working back until it pops out. And, the loose ends at the bottom are worked until you either bury them completely—see the blue one in Figure 2—or you can leave them short-tailed as in the red one. Keep working the tails to the inside and make the bend bigger and close up the hole—this is NOT a neckerchief slide. After studying the three different ones I have, I see that each pull-thru was done slightly differently. Gotta love that rigid flexibility!

Figure 2: Zoomed in

[full size]

Materials

The red one in the figure is tied out of exactly the same cord used to tie the participant woggle during the First Troop Meeting—and it’s exactly the same length—41 inches. In our Council, each course has a color—we edge our Council Strips with the course color. In the figure, the purple one was what I gave out to the staff in SR-917, and the sky blue was what I gave out to the staff of S7-602-11-1.

Monkey-fist

The cup holders on the right-hand side of Figure 1 are monkey-fists tied around a bead. The 5/8 inch bead for the smaller ones is shown in the figure. Again, tie a monkey fist on a bead, bury the ends and pull one bend thru. For the monkey fist you use much thinner cordage and wrap it around the bead four times. Parachute cord won’t work; you need a stiffer material.

Feedback is a gift

Comments, recommendations, and even corrections are encouraged. Just eMail me and let me know: ALBest@VCU.edu .

Yours in Scouting,

Al Best, Heart of Virginia Council
Bobwhite, SE-55, 1975;
Permanent Patrol Leader, Bear patrol, SR-267, 1998;
Troop Guide, SR-604, 2004;
Assistant Scoutmaster-Troop Guides, SR-769, 2006;
Assistant Scoutmaster-Program, SR-917, 2008;
Instructor, Wood Badge course SR-966, 2009;
Course Director, S7-602-11-1, 2011.