This is how I did mine... I didn't know how much cord to use so I did it kind of bassackwards.
I soaked the cord in hot water first. This will make sense later on. Be sure your handle has a good water-resistant (at least) finish on it. Hickory is
pretty tough but you still don't want wet cord wrapped on it bare.
I ran 550 cord through the lanyard hole, tying a knot to leave about 7" for half of the wrist-loop, later. Now I had about 100 yards of damp cord ready
to wrap. Not really, but it seemed that way... better too much than not enough.
I taped down the cord level with the hole, at the "sharpest" part of the handle, where the inside of my knuckles rest. I then ran the cord straight up the handle about 2 1/2 hands wide, enough for a variety of grips. You could go right up to the base of the head if want to. I secured the cord every couple inches with electrical tape to keep it straight.
If you skip dampening the cord and taping down the first bit, you will end up doing it over. At least I did.
Once the cord was up as high as I wanted the grip to be, I just started wrapping it around, back towards the end. Keep a firm grip and pull the cord very tight as you wrap it. It will stretch a bit when damp and warm, this is helpful.
When I got back down level with the lanyard hole, I just fed the cord back through, the opposite way it came in, and tied the ends together.
In a few hours when the cord dries out, it will snug up nicely. It's not as dramatic as rawhide, by any means. But it's easy to hold onto, holds up very well, doesn't melt in the rain, and has just enough "give" to feel comfortable when bashing the heck out of some firewood or what-have-you.
There are lots of ways to finish the lanyard, of course. I wanted mine simple so I could unwrap some cord if I ever needed it. So I used a slider design I read about on BladeForums. I made a snug loop around the ends with a heavy black nylon zip-tie. I measured the ends to length and put a knot the end of each. When the zip-tie slider is brought down to the ends, you have a secure loop to wrap around your wrist, because no one wants to throw a tomahawk without meaning to. When the slider is brought up against the handle, the ends hang free and don't get caught on things, because no one wants their 'hawk yanked off their pack, or have it pull thier pants down when a bramble you're passing decides to get funny.
Some people make this type of lanyard a lot nicer with beads and other cool stuff instead of just a zip-tie and a couple knots. But I was going camping that weekend and just wanted it ready to take with.
It probably takes longer to read this than it does to actually do the whole project.
No offense, but wrapping the head itself would just be silly
The leather does look a lot nicer than paracord.
