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I've seen people sleeving cardboard tubes with no mandrel, and with motor tubes used as mandrels. I noticed that fleabay and aliexpress both have metric-sized metal tubes available for cheep shipped direct from China. Has anyone gone that route for a mandrel? I'm a little worried about it getting banged up in transit; extrusions are normally pretty dang straight off the equipment.
I'm so far only thinking about a one layer light-sleeve reinforcement of a 24mm tube. Not a lot of options for full composite in 24mm, and the ones that are available are pretty heavy. I don't think I need that much strength, but think I'll need more than just cardboard.
It looks like the shrink tube is probably the way to go, as peel ply adds texture that needs to be filled and shrink tape leaves a spiral edge that needs to be sanded off. I do have a vacuum pump, but no other bagging equipment.
For people using plastic nose cones and sleeved tube (is that anybody?), what do you do to the cone to make the diameter match the tube? Just sleeve all or part of the cone? Use plastic putty/filler and sand it fair?
I'm so far only thinking about a one layer light-sleeve reinforcement of a 24mm tube. Not a lot of options for full composite in 24mm, and the ones that are available are pretty heavy. I don't think I need that much strength, but think I'll need more than just cardboard.
It looks like the shrink tube is probably the way to go, as peel ply adds texture that needs to be filled and shrink tape leaves a spiral edge that needs to be sanded off. I do have a vacuum pump, but no other bagging equipment.
For people using plastic nose cones and sleeved tube (is that anybody?), what do you do to the cone to make the diameter match the tube? Just sleeve all or part of the cone? Use plastic putty/filler and sand it fair?