Sourcing Carbon Fibre Tube?

[DarrenHW]

I'm looking for a supplier of 1/4" ID Carbon Fibre Tube preferably roll wrapped, any suggestions?

[neilh]

Try these people

http://www.easycomposites.co.uk

[walpurgis]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/8MM-OD-x-6MM-ID-x-500MM-Carbon-Fiber-Tube-3k-8-6-Roll-Wrapped-carbon-pipe-UK-/131340155311?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&var=&hash=item1e947bb9af

[The Barbarian]

Ever thought about making a new arm wand for the '774' out of Carbon Fibre.. Should lower the mass even more suit the ADC?

[walpurgis]

Ever thought about making a new arm wand for the '774' out of Carbon Fibre.. Should lower the mass even more suit the ADC?

I have. Also thought of using arrow shafting. It's stiff, light and the right diameter. Mind you, the ADCs seem to be coping OK.

[DarrenHW]

Try these people

http://www.easycomposites.co.uk

Thanks for the suggestion but the smallest they seem to supply is 8MM ID.


http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/8MM-OD-x-6MM-ID-x-500MM-Carbon-Fiber-Tube-3k-8-6-Roll-Wrapped-carbon-pipe-UK-/131340155311?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&var=&hash=item1e947bb9af

Have fired off an email, thanks for the suggestion.


Ever thought about making a new arm wand for the '774' out of Carbon Fibre.. Should lower the mass even more suit the ADC?

My plan is to create a sleeve for a longer Aluminium tube for the GH228 i.e. to make it a GH242 with similar mass to the GH228 to better suit the M95HE. I've tried Stainless Steel but it has too much mass, the Al get's it singing but it doesn't have the image stability of the SS. I'm assuming this is due to the SS being far more rigid and I'm hoping a CF sleeve will add strength without adding too much weight / dampening. However it's such a PITA to get hold of I may just forget about it and move onto a Titanium tube.

[walpurgis]

I take it you are likely to be bonding carbon fibre pieces and metals in various orders. You may need specialist adhesives. Find a high quality model shop. Model makers use some very fine adhesives, not cheap but better than you'll find almost anywhere else.

[Brian28]

I ordered some carbon tube to rebuild a thorens arm last month , it came from hong kong ! It arrived in a week and was very very nice ! Pretty cheap too !

[Qwin]

Hi Darren

Alloy has its own sound as does Carbon fibre, the combination of both is thought by some high end makers to be superior.

I glued an alloy tube into a roll wrapped carbon fibre tube when modifying a Technics Arm.
Mass of the arm/headshell combination was almost identical to the Technics but better distributed, most of the mass is in the headshell on the Techie. It worked very well, you can see it here:

http://www.jkwynn.co.uk/TechArm_HTML/TechArm_Thumbs.html

The RR Carbon tube I used was ID 8mm but I found tubes down to 2mm ID by searching the net, there are some specialist stockists, just don’t ask me where I got mine as I have the memory of a Gold fish these days. The cheapest RR was off the Bay, some Kite making sites keep it but they mainly use pultruded, which is no where near as rigid.

Just did a quick search and found this ID 6mm:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1x-3k-Rolled-Carbon-Fibre-Tube-8mm-x-6mm-x-1000mm-CF8-14-00-free-P-P-/351375890595

Hope thats of some use :)

[DarrenHW]

Hi Ken,

Thanks for the reply, I had seen your DIY arm (where do you think I got the idea from and why I wanted RR :)) then found this http://www.hifiwigwam.com/showthread.php?87334-Carbon-fibre-Hadcock-rebuild-finished! I've posted a request for a supplier on the earlier DIY thread but no reply :(. Last week I found some cross bow bolts / arrows at a car boot and took a punt on them for £1. However, they were fibre glass not carbon, the ID was 6mm (OD 8mm) and split when I inserted the alloy. I tried a split tube on the alloy to see how the effective mass worked with the M95HE but with an approximate mass of 18g (~3g Headshell, ~7g Alloy ~8g Fibre Glass) it was too heavy for the M95HE. From your write up it would seem your CF weighed in at 8g too? If I'm reading this correct then that pretty much rules out the Al / CF tube as it would result in too much mass for the M95HE (even shaving off a little weight for the reduction in size).

I know this may seem like a lot of faffing about to accomodate the M95HE but further to our last conversation regarding cartridges I've decided to stick with the M95HE on the Hadcock, VFM wise it's going to be hard to beat. I already liked what it did but after hearing it at it's full potential on a low mass arm I'm very happy with it's performance.

I think the only option I now have available is Titanium, whilst the Al allows the M95HE to sing it doesn't have the focus or sparkle of the Stainless Steel tubes I've tried (http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?37334-Hadcock-Arm-Mods/page2&highlight=hadcock). I'm hoping this is down to rigidity (?) and that Titanium will be the right blend of strength and weight. The positive of the experiment with the Fibre Glass (failure is always an option) is that I now know that the sweet spot for the M95HE is ~13g (which allows for a pretty even distribution of weight along the arm) so can chose (with some very rough calculations) a suitable wall thickness before committing to a £90 (due to minimum order length) piece of experimental pipe.

[Qwin]

I think they make titanium arrow shafts.

You might have more luck with that.
You could reduce the weight if a thinner wall Alloy liner tube was available, maybe 0.6 or 0.8mm but I dont think you will find that easily in DIY quantity.

[DarrenHW]

22 SWG Al was hard enough to find, let alone anything thinner. Even still I don't think the arm would be light enough.

I've had a look for Ti arrow shafts but can't find anything, thanks for the suggestion though :thumbsup:.