Carbon Fiber Knowledge
The latest from the world of advanced composites and carbon fiber technology.
eBay has become a major marketplace for carbon fiber sheets, offering cut-to-size plates for repairs, prototypes, RC projects, and cosmetic work in small quantities that specialist distributors often will not serve. The problem is that a single search for carbon fiber sheets on eBay returns genuine
A carbon fiber tube 23mm in outer diameter is one of the most common mid-size stock tubes in the composites trade, and for good reason. At 23mm it is large enough to develop real bending stiffness and load capacity, yet small enough to fit the envelopes of racing drones, robotic arms, camera rigs, a
Carbon fiber tubes and rods are the two workhorse stock shapes of composite engineering, and for most projects the choice between them comes down to a single question: does the part carry bending and torsion, or does it carry axial load? A tube places material at the circumference, where it resists
A carbon fiber tube chassis built as a space frame is one of the purest expressions of composite engineering: a set of thin tubes joined at load-spreading nodes, carrying bending and torsion through triangulation rather than heavy sheet. Where a monocoque molds bodywork and structure together into o
Learning to carbon fiber tube connect properly is a workshop skill that separates an assembly that lasts from one that creeps apart over time. Carbon fiber tubes are strong and light, but they are unforgiving at the joint: the resin is brittle, the fibers carry load in one direction, and a joint tha
Choosing the right carbon fiber tube connection is often the difference between a structure that behaves exactly as predicted and one that fails at its most loaded point. Carbon fiber carries load beautifully along its fibers, but every joint interrupts that path and concentrates stress, so a weak c
A carbon fiber tube t-joint is one of the hardest joints to make in a lightweight structure, because a right-angle branch applies a bending moment to the main tube and carbon fibre is at its weakest when loaded across its fibres. A drone frame, robot arm, camera rig or chassis built from round tubes
Carbon fiber tube clamps are the small, unglamorous parts that decide whether a lightweight structure stays together. A drone arm, robot link, bicycle frame, tripod leg or camera boom is rarely one continuous tube; it is a set of tubes joined by clamps, and the joint usually fails before the tube do
Carbon fiber tube repair is asked about whenever a drone arm, robot link, bike frame or tripod leg takes a knock, because a carbon tube is expensive and replacing it is not always easy. The good news is that many carbon tubes can be brought back to a useful fraction of their original strength. The b