pneumatic catapults

[Cothron Theiss]

This is a bit of a tangent, but what do people typically use as the fulcrum in the catapult? Do you just drill holes and run a strong bolt through, or do you incorporate bearings and go with something a bit more engineered? In 2014, we had an excessively overpowered kicker (A poor design led to us putting a dangerous amount of power into that kick.) that ended up bending several rods we were using as fulcrums. The hardstop was actually between the fulcrum rod and where our surgical tubing was mounted, so when the kicker arm hit the hardstop, the kicker arm applied a pretty large amount of side loading on the intended fulcrum rod because the corner of the hardstop began acting as the fulcrum whenever it hit the hardstop.

So long story short, what methods do you all use to mount the catapult arm and/or use as a fulcrum?