I removed the cord over a section of the rail and made a 3/8" wide slot. The wide slot allows me to make abbreviated wraps of the front and back of the rail and leave room for the hidden internal warp cords later. There's not a lot of meat around the holes, so I need to be very careful about positioning the stapler to avoid a blow out.
I used individual pieces of cord for each of the two short wraps, so there are extra ends due to the patching. When wrapping the actual rail, I should be able to wrap more optimally, with fewer loose ends.
