8mm Carbon Fibre Rod

Many people prefer the natural finish of these carbon products, however if you wish to paint them for your specific application then you can do so. A light key with a fine abrasive paper like a 1200 grit wet and dry paper and a thorough degrease and clean using mild detergent or an alcohol wipe should be all that is needed to prepare the surface for paint.

Generally, the pultrusions are used ‘as-is’ and don’t require painting. If you really do need/want to paint the pultrusions then a light key with a fine abrasive paper like a 1200 grit wet and dry paper and a thorough degrease and clean using mild detergent or an alcohol wipe should be all that is needed to prepare the surface for paint.

No these pultrusions are not magnetic.

No, this pultrusion is manufactured from standard modulus fibres.

We do not currently offer a custom cutting service for our tubes and pultrusions. However, they are able to be cut DIY relatively easily as you can see from our tutorial video: How to Cut Carbon Fibre Sheet, Tube and Parts

Unfortunately it is not possible to cut a usable thread into carbon fibre composites. The nature of the material is such that the teeth on a thread would not be able to take any load and would break up either during thread turning or the first attempt at using the thread.

Where it is desirable to have a threaded method of attaching the tube or rod, it is commonplace to fabricate and then bond an aluminium insert into the tube or over the rod end which can then have a thread cut into it.

In simple terms these carbon rods would work with linear bearings in that fashion. The only concern is long term durability as the carbon surface is not quite as hard as aluminium and thus would likely wear quicker in many circumstances. For low usage or low load situations this may well not be a limiting factor.

The HDT of these pultrusions is 80 °C.

Yes absolutely! If done carefully, a hacksaw can be used to cut a pultrusion. Take a look at this VIDEO where we show various methods of cutting carbon fibre.

The biggest risk in trying to drill these rods is the rod splitting down its length due to the fibre orientation. We would recommend binding the end to be drilled with some masking tape tightly wound round to help prevent it splitting. If you're careful, you should be able to drill the rod without any problems however you'll also need to be careful that whatever goes into the drilled hole also does not risk splitting the rod (for example, don't screw a self-tapping screw in there!).

Due to the manufacturing tolerance overlap on both the tube and rod, the rod does not slide into the tube as manufactured. However, with a small amount of sanding of the rod surface, the rod can be made to fit inside the tube.