A scratching post rarely fails at the base or the top plate. It fails when the rope wears through in the middle band where the cat actually works, and the whole thing gets thrown out over a worn section the length of your forearm. Re-wrapping costs a fraction of a new post, takes an evening, and keeps a piece of furniture your cat has already accepted.

Sisal is the right fibre for the job because it is coarse and it splits under a claw rather than fraying into loops. That resistance is what cats are after, since dragging the claw is how they shed its worn outer sheath, and it is why a sisal post gets used while a carpeted one gets ignored in favour of the sofa arm. This rope is untreated, so nothing sits between claw and fibre.

• Strong natural sisal rope
• Untreated, with no coating or dressing
• Available in 15m, 30m and 60m coils
• Two finishes: primary natural colour or bleached
• For re-wrapping posts or building a scratcher from scratch
• Hard-wearing under daily clawing

On working out how much you need. Length depends on the diameter of your post and the height you are covering, and we would rather you measured than took a guess from us. Run a tape once around the post, work out how many turns fill the height, and add a margin. Glue at the top and bottom only, use something non-toxic, and keep every turn tight, because loose wrapping unravels within weeks.

What the options mean. Sold in sizes from 15 M to 60 M — £11.99 to £21.99.

Who it's for: Cat owners with a worn post worth saving, or anyone building their own scratcher who wants proper sisal rather than a soft substitute.