Last night as an experiment, I used some 1/4" white "write on" heat shrink tubing to "whip" the ends of some 1/8th Amsteel Blue. It seems to hold better than tape, can be done with nothing more than a match and scissors/knife and does not appear to affect the cord - not that it would matter. It's at a non-load bearing point.
The reason I used the white "write on" is because that's what Home Depot had at the time (in a small amount). The end result looks and feels like the end of a shoe lace.

Anyhow, just tossing that out there. Thoughts? Comments?

-Rob