Annodising should'nt effect it really. The annodising will likely come off mostly when you rough the surface up as, depending on the process, annodising usually doesnt go that deep into the aluminium.

Warren Penalver
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Support Assistant

Hi Stevie

Sounds like an interesting project and good to see another bike chap on hear, just one thought and thats how would the carbon tube perform under impact ? plenty of rocks and lots of other nasty things to hit the torque arm. I had a torque arm fail on a road bike it it was not a good experiance.

Thanks, would you recommend removing the anodizing on the alloy in the area to be bonded? Or leave the surface finish rough (unpolished) before its done? 

I would recommend our ET515 Semi Flexible 15min Epoxy Adhesive for bonding the inserts into the tube.  It is very good at bonding metals to carbon but it also has a higher flexural strength under vibration than other adhesives. It may be described as "semi-flexible" but in real terms it is still a rigid adhesive just with a higher flexural strength.

You would need to key both contact surfaces heavily so that you get the best mechanical lock when bonded.


Warren Penalver
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Support Assistant

The best structural adhesive I have been using is called Hysol (Its a epoxy based adhesive made by Locktyte  mis spelled for sure)
I tested with some carbon fiber sheets. The carbon let go before the glue. That's my opinion. It is sold at Aircraft Spruce here in north America. (they cater to the aviation crowd) There may be better out there that I don't know about.
Hope this helps.
Fred

Hi,

I'm after a structual adhesive for a brake torque arm on a motocross bike. We currently make these in alloy but I would like to try a Carbon Fiber one. 
I'm planning on using CF tubing with machined 6082 alloy inserts set into each end, to allow the fitment of threaded rose joints. The alloy inserts will be anodized, before fitment.

The brake arm, and inserts, will be under tension everytime the brake is applied, and the suspension moves. (which is quite a lot on a motocross bike!) Obviously, I don't want the ends pulling out of the tube, as that would be very dangerous.

What adhesive would be best? ET515? (I'll be using this for another project I'm working on) ET500? Or is there something else/better I should be looking at?

Thanks

Stevie