Superpants

From one of the manufacturers they are listed as available with threaded length ranging between 16mm & 80mm: M10 Wing Screws Fabory are a master distributor which many of the smaller fastener suppliers buy their stock from, this means that any good fastener supplier should be able to get them in for you, but may be subject to a minimum order of one box. I usually use Margnor in Guildford and they have rarely not been able to source what I have needed. Margnor

A previous employer used to use Capalex: https://capalex.co.uk/ Hydro as mentioned above are also a well regarded supplier. Tooling is generally not very expensive compared to other types of production tooling (£500-2000 sort of range). Typically minimum order is by weight as they will run a billet through the machine (typically 250-500kg) and you get the length that corresponds to this. The equipment is big, so there don't tend to be many small companies around producing extrusions, but the suppliers are set up for relatively modest batches so well worth talking to them!

Well done- that looks like a really good effect!

As Tom suggests, quite a few of the Anderson range can be configured this way- Torberry are the main distributor https://www.torberry.co.uk/.If this is only for signal connections there are some low current ones used in model aircraft.The search term is "hermaphroditic connector"

My mother in law is in one of the 'trial' areas that is having PTSN dialling removed imminently. When I was trying to find out the implications of this, I visited the Ofcom website expecting to find some useful independent information and was suprised to find virtually nothing. I put in a complaint on this and am assured that they are working on improving thier information, but it's all a bit last minute!

No problem

Not aware of any that do similar to the couple of charities that deal with tools. If you have a Maker Space/ Hackspace locally they may well take on such items. There are also some clubs or groups for kids for getting them interested in STEM activities that might have an interest. Finally some of the scrapstores might take it.

Having gone through a couple of sets of redundancies in my career (although not in this industry) don't forget you can negotiate your own deal- what is presented by the business canbe tailored to individual circumstances. Don't be afraid to ask. In my case I negotiated a couple of weeks unpaid leave as my last two weeks of work enabling me to go off and start a sabbatical. This meant I was still employed on the redundancy date and so got the full redundancy pay (which was significantly more than the lost wage).

I've used El wire and tape in a number of costumes- I did a write up of my Tron on here: Tron As others have said it isn't very bright. Some colours are much brighter than others though, and to get the best out of it you need to drive it with an appropriate inverter for the length. As others have suggested it may well not be bright enough for your needs Terminating to it is very fiddly, so if you just want a one off project it's easier to buy it pre-terminated in the next length up than the one you need and cut it back rather than terminating yourself. (There are a couple of good tutorials on instructables on this). Normally it's based on a solid core wire, so it holds it's shape but doesn't take flexing very well. For a reliable UK source, I use ELwirecraft. Basic 1m kits with 2AA inverter are pretty cheap- I'd recommend buying one and experimenting.