Hi all,
just wanted to pass along some experimenting I did with using cord for the rod butt in place of cork tape.
I needed to replace some worn out cork on a jigging rod I got, initially I used 3/16" diamond braided nylon from HD, which was nice but almost a little to thick. And it was bright electric blue.
Yesterday I went to one of the ArmyNavy stores in the city at lunch and picked some black parachute cord.
Really nice stuff, its soft on the hands, but the ribbing of the wrap gives it grip to keep the rod from sliding in your hand. Also wont wear out waders sliding it btwn the legs or under the arm, and the cord is rot proof. It looks bad ass, esp. the black cord on a black wrapped rod. Was super easy to replace the cork tape.
Ive read I may need to preshrink the parachute cord in hot water.
I just have on temporarily right now, but will attach it permanently with some adhesive and thread wrap the ends.
The para cord comes in tons of colors, and I can envision my next honey rod over the winter being wrapped with 2 cords for a two tone gold/brown look to match the guide wraps.
Relatively cheap too, and worth foling around to see if ya like it.
I could see it working nice for alot of the canal guys that do heavy jigging

Krispy;
I was talking to a buddy about doing that on my rod with very small diameter rope.. good idea about the parachute cord!

Could you take some pictures? Sounds like a really good idea.

I have seen it, also if you use the shrink wrap stuff over the cord it will last foreva. I held a rod done with it and it was awesome. I will be doing one that way myself, the cord with the shrink tub over it...good luck

I just read an older post of mine asking about this, and the picture (no longer there) showed cork tape AND nylon cord wrapped in tandem. I forgot about that, it looked really cool, esp. with a contrasting color. That electric blue cord that first used would look awesome wrapped like that.
I was also thinking about running a spiral cord around the butt, underneath the cord wrap. Would give a cool samurai sword look, not to sure how comfortable it would be on the hands though

plus the old school look is always cool :kewl:

If you strip the core, the cord should lay almost flat on the rod.

I have an old 10 1/2 foot bamboo surf stick whose handles are wrapped with tarred cod line. Pissa looking setup.