Rubber to make a Bungee

felipe felop said:

you could try medical suppliers on the web

Click to expand...

I recall seeing boxes of clear/white surgical rubber (silicone rubber) in medical supply shop inside a US hospital. They started using it in higher-performance catapults back in the 70s. Not sure if it is "the right stuff" for the job (my RA & Beuchat bungees appear to be regular black latex rubber, as far as I can tell) but it should work, it's hollow, strong & v. stretchy. There is a video on youtube of a Spanish guy making a bungee, he used some bright green rubber tubing (I wondered if it might be intended for angling).

[BTW the Beuchat bungee/swivel-clip from apnea.co.uk are slim and seem well suited to UK-size fish. The RA bungees & clips are considerably bigger, stronger and heavier - suitable for big game fish.]

That's interesting Trelawney. I just fitted my Beuchat Marlin Bungee this afternoon. The clip looks like a high quality (bearing type swivel) but very thin spinning clip. The clip is much, much thinner than the Rob Allen clip, so what you say does not surprise me although I find it disappointing. I was planning to buy another; perhaps I'll wait a while and see how this one pans out. I have some clips from Foxfish in Guernsey that might make suitable replacements & I have a spare RA clip but that be too much for the little carbon XXV 75.

Since my last post, I had my homemade minimalist bungee (3mm of marine bungee in-line between spear & muzzle) fail - snap - twice. Although it worked fine last year, I think the problem was that I switched from a double wrap of spear-line to a single-wrap - so there is a lot more energy left in the spear when it reaches the end of the line. Also, I shortened the spearline by removing about 1.5m of 3mm bungee -- the remaining, 4-6" of bungee was clearly not enough to absorb the impulsive tension at the end of the much shorter spearline. Lesson learnt. Fortunately I was able to find the shiney silver spear, despite heavy weed, twice - phew. Luckily I had not spray painted the spear matt black, as I was thinking of doing on the drive down.