Bungie Cord How-To
Here is a neat little detail item that
has numerous uses. I came up with the idea for use on a race car,
but bungie cords could be used to hold down luggage on a station
wagon or loose items on a pick-up.
To start, you will need: red and blue
fine tip permanent markers, tweezers, .020 scale ignition wires,
tape, super glue, toothpicks, and elastic from cotton socks.
First, take the elastic and stretch it to
double its length and tape it down at both ends. Then take the red
and blue markers and make alternating red and blue marks on the
elastic. Keep the marks as small as possible so as to keep a scale
appearance. The marks will look out of scale when you make them, but
once the elastic is unstretched, the marks will be half the size
that you made them.
Next, take some .020 scale ignition wire
and strip the plastic coating from it to expose the silver wire
beneath. You will need two pieces; then tape the elastic to one of
the pieces of the silver wire. Hold the two pieces of wire and
elastic with thumb and index finger and wrap the loose piece of
silver wire around the other piece of wire and elastic about eight
times in tight coils. If the coils aren’t too tight, they can be
squeezed together with tweezers.
Next, remove the tape and pull out the
wire from the coil. Then pull the elastic through the coil until it’s
flush with the end of the coil. Then put a lot of super glue on the
end of the coil to secure the elastic in the coil.
Next, use tweezers to make a hook in the
end of the coil. Be sure that the hook is large enough to fit your
application. Then repeat this whole process at the other end of the
elastic except before you secure the elastic to the coil with glue,
measure the length of elastic that you’ll need for your
application without stretching it. Then remove ¼ of the total
length. This method keep s the finished bungie cord taught without
putting a lot of strain on the elastic.
