Glad to help deltablade
Another product that looks great is thin craft leather lacing. The leather absorbs beeswax with gentle heat just like the hemp.
So I didn't destroy any knives during my experiments I used an offcut from a timber curtain rail, but anything similar would work to practice with.
If hemp cord or craft leather isn't readily available to you I found that everything from thin jute cord to butchers twine will work, the only thing that didn't work for me very well was jute cord around 5mm thick (550 paracord thickness). It had too many fuzzy strands that wouldn't stay put even once coated in wax, functionally it worked but didn't look very nice...
Happy experimenting!