Hi everybody. So those of you who have been following me on Facebook know that I've been working on a pink corset and I'm almost done the only thing I need to do is apply tips to the laces.
So I'm going to document this and I'm 
going to experiment with three different ways of tipping your laces.
The first one is just using a source of heat, usually a candle or something, to melt the tips of the laces.
For that you're going to have to use a synthetic fiber like nylon or polyester. If you try that on cotton laces they will scorch. So always do a test before you do that.
The second method I'm going to be using 
is these shrink tips right here. So I got one footlong shrink tip for about a dollar online.
And then the third way: I'm going to be using these metal aglets right here.
Now, I don't have a professional aglet setter, so I'm going to try and put this on with pliers and we'll see how it goes I don't think it'll turn out very well but we'll see.
So the tools I have here, other than the tips themselves, are a candle or you can also use a lighter or some other source of fire.
I also have a pair of needle nose pliers, and some scissors for trimming down the gross frayed part of the laces
and also a bowl of water just in case the laces ever catch fire, and it's also a good 
idea to have a fire extinguisher on hand if you or somebody near you happens to be a pyromaniac.
So first I'm going to show you why you want to tip your laces.
This is a length of paracord, so it has a nylon shell around seven little nylon fibers like that.
But even though this is very strong you 
can see that it frays quite easily,
and the shell is also separate from those inside guys so they can pull along and it's really not very good at going through the grommet unless you seal it.
So what I'm just going to do right now is I'm just going to trim the end of this scissors like that,
and then I'm going to hold it over the fire. Not directly into the fire, but just over the fire and as I see it start to melt I'm actually going to take the pliers and squeeze that shut.
So you can see it's it doesn't take very long.
You want to use pliers for the squeezing 
part because obviously you don't want to do that with your fingers.
Try not to get the melting plastic on your fingers that's never good.
And you can squeeze it flat if you like or you can just keep squeezing it round and round until you get it to the point where you like it.
There we go.
And so you can see that's a little bit scorched right there, but that is not going to come apart.
And so you have a nice hard tip there for you to feed through your grommets.
So, the next method I'm going to try are these shrink tips and I'm just going to cut perhaps an inch off of here.
An inch is all you need for one tip.
And you also just grabbed a bit of thread here maybe about a meter and I'm going to wrap this around the tip of my laces.
Now you might be wondering why I'm wrapping this.
Well the tip of the lace as it stands now is too big to fit through the shrink tip, so I need to wrap it very tightly with something to reduce the circumference so that it will be able to fit through the tip.
So when you're done wrapping the end of this and you think it's tight enough then you can go ahead and just trim off any of these little straggly bits here that might make it difficult to put it into the shrink tip,
and don't cut off the thread just yet. Keep the thread so that you can actually use it to thread it through the shrink tip like so.
and just gently pull it through...
and there you go!
So now you can see the shrink tip is on, and then just hold this over the flame, not too close, you don't want to melt it you just want to apply some gentle heat to shrink the tip onto the lace.
I don't know if you can see that but it is 
starting to shrink and form to the lace right now.
So wait a couple of minutes for your tip 
to cool down completely and when you're done it should look something like this.
So the last tipping method I'm going to attempt is pinching these little metal aglets onto the end of the lace.
So there is a special tool that you can use to put on aglets, but it is very expensive - around thirty to forty dollars - so I'm just going to try this using pliers and let's see how it goes.
You can see that there are three sides to this aglet, so I'm just going to place the lacing in here... 
like so...
so it's sandwiched in there.
And I'm gonna to go ahead and try and squeeze it in.
Okay, so I kind of mangled it a little bit, but 
it was my first time. So I believe it is really   secure in there so I can just go ahead and cut off the rest of this
and this isn't going to come up and it's small enough to fit through the grommets.
But since I've already mangled it I may as well just go ahead and mangle it a 
little bit more.
Okay, so I'm pretty sure this is the ugliest metal aglet I have ever seen but there is no way this thing is going to come off that is staying on there forever.
So this is actually not too bad.
I mean, if you want to make it pretty then you can invest in that special aglet setter,
but I'm just going to stick with my pliers because it's a lot more fun.
And here's a side by side comparison of the three methods I just did.
So this one here is just melting the ends and pinching it, this one is a shrink tip, and this one is the metal aglet.
So there you go three different ways to tip your laces so that you can thread your corset more easily.
So I hope you enjoyed this short tutorial. In my next video I'll show you my completed corset.
So I will talk to you guys later. Bye!