Knotless bungee

Builder's Forum
1

I tried the knotless bungee technique with scrap pieces, but it didn't work for me. I couldn't roll back the sheath which is glued to the rubber, and without the overlap the butt joint wasn't strong enough. 

As an alternative I made a sheath out of wood. I first did a test piece which was very strong and couldn't be pulled apart. 

I drilled a 1/4' hole through a 1-1/2" length of wood then carved it into a cylinder. Dyed it black and a couple coats of epoxy to seal it. To assemble I soaked the bungee sheath and the interior with epoxy and put in a good blob between the 2 halves. I also did a coat of urethane after the epoxy set.

I don't know how it'll last in the long term, but it'll be easy enough to redo or switch back to using knots if necessary.

 

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2

  I slid two lengths of heat shrink tubing onto the bungee, overlapped the bungee ends and lashed them tightly together with brass wire. I then pulled one of the tubes over the overlapping ends, applied heat and it tightened around  the ends. The second tube was slightly longer, I pulled it over the first tube and repeated the process. The result is strong, durable and looks much like your picture. However, after doing all of the above I restored a severly abused 40 year old kayak and used knots to tie the bungees and I actually prefer the traditional look of the knot. But your technique certainly results in a sleeker look.  MIke