Custom Hydraulic Lines for OEM Manufacturers

WHAT CURTIS DOES FOR CUSTOM HYDRAULIC LINES

Curtis Products fabricates custom hydraulic lines for OEM equipment manufacturers by applying capabilities the shop has run for decades — tube bending, end forming, welding and brazing, and tube assemblies & kits — to hydraulic applications. We don't run a separate hydraulics division with its own equipment; we bend, form, and join the same steel, stainless steel, copper, and aluminum tubing we've always worked with, sized and finished for a hydraulic line rather than an exhaust run or a coil. That distinction matters to buyers: a custom hydraulic line lives or dies on wall thickness, end-form fit, and weld integrity, and those are the exact capabilities our floor was built around.

Whether you're building mobile or stationary equipment, custom hydraulic lines route fluid from a pump to a cylinder or valve bank under real pressure. We bend the tube, form the end to fit the mating connection, weld or braze where the assembly calls for it, and hand back a finished part instead of a shipment of raw tubing.

PROCESS & CAPABILITIES

Hydraulic tube bending on our floor uses the same three methods we use for any tight-tolerance job: manual fixture bending, power fixture bending, and CNC rotary bending. Method choice depends on tolerance, wall thickness, and volume, and gets decided at quoting. We bend steel, stainless steel, copper, and aluminum tubing from 1/8 inch to 3 inch OD — the size range that covers most hydraulic tube assemblies, from small pilot lines to larger return lines.

Once a tube is bent, end forming is what turns it into something that seals against a fitting. Our end forming operations include ORFS, flaring, flanging, swaging, sizing, and expanding — ORFS is one of the fitting styles our end forming covers for hydraulic connections, and it's a standard part of our end forming lineup, not a special hydraulic-only process. Where an assembly needs a weld or braze joint instead of, or in addition to, an end form, our welding and brazing group works mid-to-large diameter steel, stainless, and aluminized steel tube to AWS requirements, using manual and robotic MIG welding plus torch, hand, and induction brazing. We can also shear tube up to 3 inch OD to complement a bend. Finished tube assemblies can be delivered as loaded kits on custom-designed racks when a customer wants parts staged for their line.

WHY OEMS PICK A SHOP THAT'S BEEN DOING THIS SINCE THE 1950S

Curtis Products has been in the tube business since the fall of 1959, when Curtis Heckaman won a contract to supply short-run, formed tubing assemblies after no other manufacturer could meet the customer's quality and delivery requirements. The company is now in its third generation of family management, ISO 9001:2015 certified, and runs a quality process built around prevention — receiving, in-process, and final inspections that document compliance before a part ships. None of that is hydraulics-specific; it's the same discipline applied to every tube that leaves the building, which is exactly why OEMs trust us with custom hydraulic lines where a failed weld or a mis-sized end form isn't a cosmetic problem.

Launch planning tools like Team Feasibility Commitment, Design Review, and Mistake Proofing get applied before a new hydraulic tube assembly ever reaches full production, inside 254,000 square feet of dedicated plant space in South Bend, Indiana. OEM buyers in Chicagoland, Detroit, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, and beyond can send us prints because on-time delivery and design expertise on a pressure-critical part aren't things you improvise.

FROM PRINT TO FINISHED HYDRAULIC ASSEMBLY

If you're still finalizing a print for custom hydraulic lines, our rapid prototyping team can build a working prototype from your specs, or reverse engineer a sample part, so you can test fit and routing in your own system before committing to a full run. We don't publish a standard pressure rating for hydraulic tube assemblies because wall thickness, material, and end-form selection all drive what a given line can hold — those specs get confirmed with our engineers during quoting, the same way we confirm tolerance and radius on any bent tube.

Low-volume and prototype hydraulic tube assembly orders get the same design attention as production runs; we handle low-volume custom assemblies with hands-on engineering support rather than routing small jobs around a standard process. For the equipment behind our bending work, see our tube bending page; for the fluid-side companion to this page, see fluid conveyance systems.