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Step 8Epoxy the joints
This is a major stage, and takes a long time. We used West Systems epoxy, and it worked rather well for us. The epoxy must be pretty thin, you want to avoid really viscous stuff.
Setup: You should be in a well ventilated area, or outside. You do not want to be breathing in fumes from the epoxy. If you have gas masks go ahead and use them, but particle filters won’t do anything. Lay out lots of newspaper, this is a messy process. Rubbing alcohol is a must, and you’ll need a lot of it. You use this to clean the bamboo before you epoxy it as well as to clean up any errant drips of epoxy. Disposable rubber gloves that are designed to handle chemicals are also important. Don’t wear clothes that you care about, and it’s not a bad idea to wear an apron of some sort. Having your arms protected with clothing or plastic bags is ideal. Pre-cut your string into 3 or 4 foot sections. The last thing is to have two disposable dishes or containers, one for mixing the epoxy in and one for rubbing alcohol.
Process: It is best to have two people working during this process. One person mixes epoxy and hardener in one bowl and then dips in string. This person then pinches the string and pulls the string through their fingers to get off excess epoxy (like papier-mâché). Once the string is free of excess epoxy, the “dipper” hands off the string to the “wrapper”. The wrapper then wraps the string around the joint, trying to keep it taut and trying to keep the joint symmetrical. Expect to do one to two joints at a time, depending on where they are. The epoxy starts to harden after about ½ hour to an hour, but takes about 12 hours to become secure.
When mounting the rear triangle, try to be as sure as possible to make the rear axle perpendicular to the rest of the bike.
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