0.5mm (0.02") Carbon Fiber 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.

Carbon fibre rods can certainly be bent, in just the way that you describe. Until you take them to their breaking point they would always try to spring back straight. In the case of this 0.5mm rod that you've asked the question about, it's incredibly thin and so can be bent, coiled even, very easily.

As for joining the rods together what you'd need would be a metal sleeve, much like what you'd find on tent poles, although a LOT smaller!

I'm afraid we don't have anything like this in our range and, to be honest, down at 0.5mm I very much doubt there will be anything available as standard on the market so what I would suggest would be to either buy some 0.5mm ID aluminium tube (if you can find it) or some 1.5mm aluminium rod, cut it to length (maybe 10mm) and then drill a 0.5mm hole lengthways down it. You could then bond one end onto the rod and the other end just pushes in.