SpudFiles

dose any body know a way to unglue pvc without cracking the pipe or ruining it. I want to unglue a ball valve I from my first air gun and replace it with a sprinkler valve. I would normally cut the pipe around the valve but if I do that ther will not be enough pipe to attach the sprinkler valve on the chamber side. I will probably cut the barrel, and add a thread adapter so I can change the barrels. any suggestions, or should I add a spring loaded opening mechinism to the ball valve instead of replacing it with the sprinkler valve?

It's considered a permanent weld. However, you will likely get some responses that will describe how to do it. You may or may not have success doing it.

You dont really unglue it but you will most likely be told to cutt it off and use a new coupling.

thats what I thought, but there are so many different solvents I was unsure if something "melted" the glue or at least softened it so that I could pull apart the peices I need to change.

As far as Im aware... heat is the only way to soften the PVC.. not sure if it would work though..

no, that would soften the pipe an leave the glue intatct. I think I will just leave it as is, it's not like it is my only gun. I was just looking at it today and reliezed it would be much better if it had a sprinkler valve.

So why didn't you chop it off?

We ain't fucking butchers, Boris...

all the couplings are close to gether, to be able to attach any thing I would not have enough pipe exposed to have a strong bound. it would be like I had to build a whole new gun if I did that. the barrel would be the only piece I could salvage.

You say there's not enough pipe left on the chamber side if you cut it?

My suggestion to you, should you choose to accept it - is to leave the ball valve where it is (permanently open), and mount the sprinkler after it on the barrel side. Should work - won't be the prettiest solution, but it gets around that problem.

When I read things like this, I remember some of why I use soldered copper - anything I don't like, I can unsolder and fix it, no faffing about with cutting pipe out of fittings or any of that.
Obviously the fact that it's hot makes it a little harder to position pieces in the first place, but a good set of thick heat proof gloves makes a fix for that. I have a set of leather biking gloves that does the job nicely. They pick up some burns - but at least I don't.

I was thinking about that.
I do not use a lot of copper due to the price of it here in the US. I am starting to get into higher psi guns and I will begin using some sort of metal.

Raggy wrote:My suggestion to you, should you choose to accept it - is to leave the ball valve where it is (permanently open), and mount the sprinkler after it on the barrel side. Should work - won't be the prettiest solution, but it gets around that problem.

Yep. And it also acts as a safety valve!

Raggy also wrote:When I read things like this, I remember some of why I use soldered copper - anything I don't like, I can unsolder and fix it, no faffing about with cutting pipe out of fittings or any of that.

True, though I prefer threaded connections which do not require heating.

RAGGY!!?!! WHAT!?!?!

MUST KILL!!!

psycix wrote:Yep. And it also acts as a safety valve!

Not really. Those should strictly be after the main valve, otherwise there is a small volume of air between the ball valve and main valve which can still be used to fire the cannon.

However, used in the right way, you could get multiple (low power) shots by opening and closing the ball valve to fill the volume between the valves.

I actually did this on an early cannon. Two ball valves, one a trigger, one to fill the volume between them - six hand rotated barrels. It worked quite well - you could get off all the shots in well under a minute. If you were really adventurous, you could reload the barrels again in a matter of seconds and fire another set of shots before re-pumping... but after that, the power dropped far too much to be worthwhile.

Good fun though.

I've had success with removing a part, as long as you are ok with that part being 100% destroyed.

What you do is use a dremel and saw sections into the pvc you want removed. About one cut every inch and a half or so being careful to not cut the piece you're keeping. once you've done this saw off any extra that isn't needed. Then use a hammer and flat head screw driver and slowly tap the glued section until it separates from the uncut piece section by section. Using this method correctly you can remove any piece without damaging the other at all.

Radiation wrote:I've had success with removing a part, as long as you are ok with that part being 100% destroyed.

What you do is use a dremel and saw sections into the pvc you want removed. About one cut every inch and a half or so being careful to not cut the piece you're keeping. once you've done this saw off any extra that isn't needed. Then use a hammer and flat head screw driver and slowly tap the glued section until it separates from the uncut piece section by section. Using this method correctly you can remove any piece without damaging the other at all.

Ditto on that. Done it many a time.

Great! I think I will give that a shot!
quick unrelated question, do you think this gun is worthy of a QEV or a sprinkler valve?