Making your parallel bars thicker

Hi everyone,

 

I've had one of my friends (a carpenter) craft me a pair of big, sturdy, awesome wooden parallel bars. However, having used them for a couple of months, I figured that perhaps the bars themselves are a bit too thin (insufficient diameter). Therefore, I have been playing with the thought of adding some sort of tape to the mid section of the bars, just to see if that'd improve the feel of the bars. Before I vandalize my bars with all sorts of strange tape/whatever I can find, I wanted to see if any of you guys have any experience in this area? I mean, I have seen the creativity on the forum so perhaps one you have a genius solution? 

 

On top of my head, I was thinking something like badminton racket grip tape?

 

 

Yes, if you use tape that would work well. I've always found tournagrip the cheapest when it comes to tennis wraps. I use it in my pull up bar.

 Can you make up some thicker rails and swap them out?

Thanks a lot, I will try it and see how it works, cheers

@Blairbob: Unfortunately not, the whole thing is screwed together like I don't no what - it'd probably be easier to make some entirely new ones  ​