hey guys this is David today we're gonna kill two birds with one stone I'm gonna show you a super cool every day carry survival hack you can do in about five minutes to add 60 feet or more of emergency survival cordage and an indestructible redundant fire kit to your shoes you're curious stay tuned okay well two of the most difficult items to improvise in a wilderness survival situation are cordage and a fire-making kit the cool thing is that no matter where you are you probably have your shoes on since most shoes have shoe strings you can replace your standard strings with 550 fire cord and then steal mini fire steel rods and your new shoelace tips okay let me explain what this hack will do for you like 550 paracord fire cord has seven white inner strands a tough outer casing and an additional red strand that's designed to be used as emergency tinder which I'll get back to in a minute you can use standard paracord but won't have this additional red strand now your stock shoe strings are probably a single piece of twine so let's say your shoe string is four feet but 1.2 meters long with two shoes your total available stock cordage is 8 feet or 2.4 meters but with 550 fire cord you get 8 inner strands and the outer casing which is 9 lengths of total cord that are each 4 foot in length this equals 9 times 4 feet which is 36 feet or about 11 meters and I'll multiply that by 2 shoes and we have 72 feet or 22 meters of useful twine so to get started let's first remove your old shoe strings now measure out of lengths of paracord or 550 fire cord that's about three inches longer than your original shoe strings now restring your shoes you may want to temporarily heat seal the ends of your paracord to make it easier to install your new laces now you've got a ton of cordage ready to be used in an emergency on your shoes at all times next let's turn your laces into a survival fire kit to do this you'll need a 2 inch mini Ferro rod I'll put links in the video description go ahead and cut your Ferro rod in half you can do this with small bolt cutters or a hacksaw blade next reopen two of your shoestring ends pull the outer casing of your 550 paracord back about an inch 2.5 centimeters cut off the inner strands now smooth the outer casing and insert half of your mini Ferro rod into each of your two cuts shoestring ends and slide the outer casing over the Ferro rod piece push it well into the casing now you can heat seal each rod into the paracord that's it now you have lots of twine and a reliable redundant way to spark a fire now the start a fire simply cut a Ferro rod piece out of your lace and if you used 550 fire cord pull the outer casing to cut lace tip back about four inches and then slice off a length of the red strand to transform it into spark catching tinder lay it on a dry piece of wood and scrape it like this with the edge of a rock or your knife blade to increase the surface area like this I'll make sure you have your dry fire building materials are ready to go next use the spine side of your knife to spark your Ferro rod if your red strand is prepared properly it should fire up with a few strikes now here's a bonus tip if you want to make sure to carry a backup Ferro rod stryker with you at all times simply cut a piece of a hacksaw blade and use a hunk of good quality duct tape to cover and secure it in your shoe under the insole there you have it a simple everyday carry survive will have an additional cord and a redundant fire starting kit to your shoes if you'd rather buy ready-made paracord shoe and boot laces in a variety of lengths and colors with built-in fire steel check out the Rattler strap Flint laces while I'm at it I want to extend a special thanks to the folks at Rattlers strap for inspiring the survival tip for your convenience I've included links to all the gear that we've mentioned in the video description on YouTube just click the show more tab under this video don't forget to subscribe to this channel on YouTube and click the link on your screen to subscribe to the ultimate survival tips show on Carbon TV for new survival videos 21 days before they're released on YouTube monthly giveaways over 75 other awesome outdoor shows visit ultimate survival tips calm for even more survival training and gear reviews while you're there grab your free subscription to our monthly survival emag and if your real survival junkie like us on facebook follow us on Twitter for daily survival tips and news ok this is David I hope to see you on the other side and remember be prepared because you never know you