Cracks in home made pvc guns (fixed)

Repairs to water guns. Please put repair topics in this forum so that people do not have to sort through so many topics when looking for a repair. If a fix is included in the topic, please add (Fixed) before the topic title to indicate so.
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Hydraulic
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Cracks in home made pvc guns (fixed)

Post by Hydraulic » Sun Mar 18, 2007 9:21 pm

My water gun, based on the roland tower design, had a hairline crack in the water compartment and it kept reducing my pressure and leaking water.
I simply put some purple primer on it, let it dry, then sprayed with some white paint, put tape and a metal clamp on it (the ones you use a screwdriver on) and it sealed perfectly!

(use only if it is home made)

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Silence
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Post by Silence » Sun Mar 18, 2007 10:34 pm

Welcome to the forums!

Nice fix. Do you know how the gun got the hairline crack? I know PVC objects can snap if there's a lot of stress on a joint from falling.

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SSCBen
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Post by SSCBen » Mon Mar 19, 2007 12:14 am

I wouldn't recommend that fix. Primer is used to clean PVC and has no sealing properties. Paint might have some sealing properties, but it's no replacement for PVC cement (which would be the easiest thing to use). Tape and a tubing clamp really don't do anything to seal this also. What should be done when a leak is encountered is fillet welding, which essentially is melting the plastic together in the affected area. Let me know if you're be interested in performing that and I can get the procedure to you. I don't think the paint will seal for very long.

By the way, welcome to Super Soaker Central! :)

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Hydraulic
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Post by Hydraulic » Mon Mar 19, 2007 12:29 am

Ok thanks, i just figured it would hold with all of the reinforcement.
Is there any special kind of cement you would reccomend?
I am also interested in that other method you mentioned, would you give me the procedure? thx
Energy and persistence conquers ALL things.

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SSCBen
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Post by SSCBen » Tue Mar 20, 2007 1:34 am

I've been really busy. so I'll see when I can scan the page from a book I have in.

There's no special cement I would recommend either. I typically just buy the PVC cement that's available in the store. ;)

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Silence
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Post by Silence » Tue Mar 20, 2007 1:45 am

Drenchenator did so already - the scanned images are linked to in http://forums.sscentral.org/t3972/.

Good point about the strength though. Maybe epoxy at least would have been okay for a hairline crack, but as Ben says, this is probably the best option.

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