From what I’ve heard, 1/2in hex shaft is out of stock, at least in Ontario.
Our team has just figured that 1/2" churro (that comes with the KOP Chassis, the AM14U), is a great alternative!
Edit: As has been pointed out by others, churros are unsuitable for high load applications. I would not use it for a drivetrain, but for ball indexing, it should do just fine.
Also, thank you to @Karthik; there is still hex shaft available in Ontario,
I would just make sure that you aren’t using it in high load applications. I understand that it is difficult to source 1/2in Hex in Ontario but it is strongly preferred over Churro due to the lack of strength. We have used Churro in the past but only as a “Quick Fix” or as a place holder until the hex stock arrived
If you’re thinking about using churro in a load bearing application such as a drivetrain, think again. You can buy thunderhex from vex or wcp. It says backordered but whenever we’ve ordered something that says backordered, it gets shipped with the rest of the order as if it were in stock.
How to turn all of your churros into Twizzlers in one easy step!
I don’t really see a point in using churros here (unless you are literally incapable of sourcing 1/2 hex shafts), especially because they aren’t as strong or supportive, and aren’t really designed for these types of applications. You are better off using ThunderHex Bearings that perfectly fit your 1/2 hex shafts so that everything is consistent.
My team ended up using a churro shaft for our intake. It held up well until our driver ran it into a wall and bent it which caused the motor to stall and burn out (775pro). If you can’t source shaft right now and it’s being used in low load, it’ll work well enough for a stop gap measure but Definitely replace ASAP with 7075 aluminum
1/2" Hex is stock at VEX Canada, both in 18" and 36" lengths. Their office is based in Pickering, Ontario, just outside of Toronto. Thunderhex is in stock in 18" lengths, but out of stock in 36" lengths.
You can also get 1/2" hex shaft from your local Metal Supermarkets
Studica also caries 1/2" hex, but they’re currently sold out.
Depending on how your intake is setup, you can also bend steel shafts. We did this a couple of times back in steamworks before we took a sheet of aluminum and made it corrugated for stiffness. Not saying don’t use aluminum hex shaft, but replacing with 7075 doesn’t mean it’s not going to bend all of a sudden. A high enough impact will still bend the shaft.
To OP:
Don’t let me saying that we bent steel shafts be a reason to not use aluminum shafts. Just make sure it’s the right alloy aka 7075. You can break anything with enough force.
A word of warning: much like the dreaded McMaster hex (or more accurately unlike VEX thunderhex), we’ve found our metal supermarkets hex to be 1-3 thousandths of an inch oversized. Nothing a bit of filing won’t fix, but it does take time (it sure feels I spent the majority my reading week doing it 
).
Yeah, and it’s harder to get 7075 from them. Definitely not ideal, but good in a pinch when VEX-CA and Studica are sold out.
We’ve being doing this for years in Brazil, since hex shafts are really hard to find and when found are really really expensive, we are using churros in our shooter and in our intake, cool thing is water hoses are just the right size to work as spacers
Churro tubes were actually specifically designed to work as a hex shaft in low-load applications where the shaft would not see a lot of torsion or bending. It’s fine to use them, very carefully, in some applications.
If you are supporting that 3" wheel by having the bearing right next to the wheel, then the churro will probably be fine. But if it’s supported by the bearing several inches away from the wheel, you might have trouble.
Then again, using a 1/2" hex shaft to support anything a significant distance from the bearing, is not a good idea, no matter what type of hex shaft you use.
The Churro is 6005A. The Vex shafting is 7075. 7075 is considerably stronger than 6005 and much better choice for shafting or anything where fatigue life is an issue. IE axles. The Churro has an considerable smaller section modulus.
We switched to Thunderhex as our universal shaft of choice in 2020. It’s more rigid than Churro (we’ve used it in drivetrains now) and you can tap the end just like you can with Churro. It’s only a few bucks more and worth the extra dollars for getting a shaft that fits well in hex bearings.
We used Churro’s as a standoff between our 3 CIM ball shifters in place of the hexshaft that you’re supposed to fit there instead. Worked alright, until we took off our gearboxes to do an inspection and noticed that the corners of the Churro buried themselves into the plastic, effectively destroying the 1/2" Hex hole that was previously there. Be careful if you plan to use Churro to replace Hexshaft in areas of softer plastic.
Another consideration: the hole in churro is about 0.03" oversize for a tapped 1/4-20 thread. It needs to be to use thread forming screws (no tap), but the resulting joint is weaker than if it had full depth threads. We’ve stripped churro spacers and dead axles, and now we’re adding helicoils in critical connections
The nice thing is that it is a very generous clearance fit for 10 bolts, so when possible I’d use that type of hardware.
And just to reiterate from before - I wouldn’t use the churro tube as a first choice for hex shaft, I’m just saying it can work and is designed for use in low load applications in a pinch. It shouldn’t be in a drivetrain, it shouldn’t be on a leading intake roller, it shouldn’t transmit excessive torque, but there are certainly applications where it is adequate.
We are using churros in our ball indexer. There isn’t much of a load, just moving a belt to transport balls.
We’re doing the same thing, works great for it.
