Bay-Area Fabricator Banks on CNC Electric Tube Bender
February 1, 2011Comments SF Tube, Hayward, CA, a tube and pipe subcontractor with more than 20 bending machines, has added an all-electric software-controlled tube bender to its arsenal. The machine, from UK manufacturer Unison, allows the company to produce more complex tubular shapes than it can using its hydraulic machines, say company officials. These complex shapes include rotary-draw bent and rollformed curves, performed in a single machining operation—parts that in some cases used to require successive operations on as many as three different machines.
The firm notes one example—a highly styled handrail for buses and trains that it now forms on the Unison machine at a 70-percent labor reduction.
Unison tube benders are distributed in the United States by Horn Machine Tools, Madera CA: 559/431-4131; www.hornmachinetools.com.
See also: Horn Machine Tools, Inc.
Technologies: Bending
