Epoxy Failure

[irisher]

After long period of procrastination I decided to fix my HPA bbmg. The swivel joint on the paintball remote snapped completely in two. The first thing I did was embed both ends of the remote in a section of 1/2 pvc with liberal amounts of JB-Weld. This held but leaked out almost instantly. The next logical approach was to JSR it. I created a mold and poured in a 1/2 inch layer of marine epoxy. Today during leak testing the assembly failed catastrophically it exploded flinging the entire Co2 tank and bracket in to the air leaving the the other end still in its cocoon of epoxy. My question to the epoxy experts is why this happened and what is the best approach to fixing it?

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

Ok, when I post something like this, it's generally to show people what not to do

In the case of such pressure bearing components, the mould itself is important as unsupported, the epoxy alone just won't cut it. Whatever you make must be encased in some sort of pipe that would be able to take the pressure anyway, properly roughened of course.

This would be a correct use of epoxy for HPA:

[irisher]

It did not break the mold, it just pulled out from the assembly.

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

just pulled out from the assembly.

Did you roughen it properly first? Smooth metal parts will eventually slip out if not prepared, I usually use a small file to make numberous shallow grooves.

[psycix]

You can also reinforce the hold on the epoxy with bolts.

[kenbo0422]

Set screws... drill and place shallow set screws into the pipe and swivel assembly, then epoxy.