I use rubber bands to protect the covers/frames of spincast & underspin reels and on some spinning reels. I bought a bunch of these from a rubber band company online. I was talking with Dick about this and he suggested bands cut from old inner-tubes would work well too. Those could be cut to a custom width for the application. Depending on the reel, I usually use one or two bands.
Pic illustrates the usage on an Abu 505 but this works for any reel that you can put a band on that has high points that will be worn when set down.
