This blog covers the day to day progress of water rocket development by the Air Command Water Rockets team. It is also a facility for people to provide feedback and ask questions.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Splice test 1

I tested the splice yesterday, but it sprung a leak at 130 psi, which was disappointing, but not unexpected for the first attempt. It was only 4 days since I did the splice so it may not have been quite long enough for a full cure of the splice. Except for the leak the splice held well though, and there were no stress marks on the bottles. All up the reinforced double-walled spliced pair was 3.15L and weighed 139 grams.

The reinforcing shells used on both ends of the rocket can be easily removed and reused for the next test since they are not glued, saving a couple of bottles there. They protected the inner bottles well during the test.

Having recently performed the 1cm x 1cm shear tests on the Araldite super strength epoxy, I've made a new splice using this glue last night, and it looks like it has a much better seal. It does not bubble up like the PL. I used very gentle heat from the heat gun to make it flow better into the corners once the splice was assembled. Tonight I'll add the extra outer sleeve and glue it on with PL.

If the epoxy fails, next I'll try the sikaflex on the inner splice for a better seal, and then again use PL for the outer sleeve.

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4 comments:

Daniel Veira said...

I use araldite frecuently, it is a strong glue. But if you bend it, it can break and make a leak. If i were you I would be careful.

George Katz said...

Hi Daniel,

Indeed we need to make sure the epoxy works in a splice first. We have never used it for this purpose before so it will be interesting to see the results of the splice tests.

Small adhesion tests with the 5-minute epoxy weren't very good so that's why we are using the super strength epoxy which held 5x better than the 5 minute stuff.

Tom Stanton said...

when I made my FTC rocket, I used araldite to seal the ends and it held up to 150psi+

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