Design Assistance

Our ability to provide quick prototyping and reverse engineering allows us to meet all of your bending needs and ensures quality tube inspection every step of the way.

Here are some basic design ideas to help you reduce the overall cost of manufacturing a part. For a more in depth analysis, please contact us for a design review.

• What You Should Know About Tube Bending

  • Center Line Radius (CLR). Typical CLR is 2 - 3x the diameter of the tube. It is possible to bend on tighter radius (up to 1x the diameter of the tube) with some materials, but not without more complex tooling. The tighter the radius, the more tooling required and the more expensive the part.

  • Use the same CLR for all bends unless prohibited by design restraints if you want to minimize tooling costs.

  • Straight between bends. Allow 3x the diameter of the tube of straight for clamping between bends and from the edge of the tube. This reduces the overall cost of the part by reducing additional trim operations and increasing the bend rate. 

  • Clamping closer than 3x the diameter of the tube may require a more aggressive grip finish and/or compound tooling.

• Tolerances
  

  • The tighter the tolerance, the greater the cost. Don't pay for something you don't need.

  • Where possible, open all tolerances and deviate from engineering block tolerances when appropriate.

• Miscellaneous
  

  • If possible provide bent tube drawings where the shape is defined with XYZ intersection points (XYZ bend data). This information is the most user friendly for application reviews and quotes.

  • Modern day equipment and tooling can allow for tight radius bending, multi radius bending, and bending with little to no straight section between bends. However, the more complex the bending the more potential there is for process and/or tooling costs to increase.

  • There are many variables involved in tube bending, so the above information should be used only as a general guideline.