Carbon Fiber Tubes

Current, Inc. is a carbon fiber tube manufacturer in East Haven, Connecticut. We make carbon fiber tubes in-house, on the same floor as the phenolic and glass-epoxy tubing we have wound since 1962. Tubes are roll-wrapped from prepreg carbon fiber on precision mandrels, cured under controlled pressure and temperature, and extracted, sanded and cut to length before they ship.

How the tubes are made

Roll-wrapping lets us tailor three things independently for each job: wall thickness, inside and outside diameter, and fiber angle. Plies laid along the tube axis carry bending loads; plies at ±45° carry torsion. Balancing the two is what gives a drone arm, a telescope section or a paddle shaft the stiffness it needs without extra weight. That is the difference from a pultruded carbon fiber tube, whose fibers run only along its length: pultruded carbon tubes are stiff in bending but weak in torsion, while a roll-wrapped tube can be built for both.

• Material. 3K plain-weave and unidirectional prepreg carbon fiber, stored and laid up in a climate-controlled environment.
• Process. Hand layup on a mandrel, high-pressure cure cycle, mandrel extraction, surface finish, cut to length. Convolutely wound tube configurations run up to 12 feet long.
• Sizes. Inside and outside diameters start at 0.093 inch. Tell us the ID, OD and length you need and we will confirm what tooling we have on hand and what needs a new mandrel.
• Finish. Sanded, ground or polished, with a natural weave face or a painted or clear-coated surface.
• Secondary work. Precision cut-off, drilled holes, slots and bonded inserts, done alongside our 3-axis CNC milling for flat carbon parts.

Where they are used

Our custom carbon fiber tubes fly on FPV and defense drones as arms and load-bearing members, where we tuned wall and fiber angle to survive high-G manoeuvres. They go into sporting goods, from archery and paddle sports to fishing rod blanks and cycling components, and into telescopes, instruments, robotics and marine hardware where a metal tube is too heavy or corrodes.

Read how we produced flat parts and tubes for an FPV and defense drone platform on a compressed timeline, and see the wider range of carbon fiber sheets, rods and fabricated parts we make.

Carbon fiber tube or laminated tube?

Carbon fiber gives the highest stiffness-to-weight ratio. When the job needs electrical insulation, arc resistance or a lower price point, a phenolic or G-10 laminated tube is often the better fit. We make both, so we can quote the right one.

How to specify a tube

1. Inside diameter, outside diameter (or wall) and length, with tolerances if they matter.
2. What the tube has to do: the bending load, torque or pressure, and the environment.
3. Quantity, whether this is a prototype or production, and the date you need it.
4. Surface finish and any machining, holes or inserts.

Send that with any drawing to the form below or to [email protected] and you will have a quote promptly and at no obligation.