Tube Bending Services for OEM Manufacturers

WHAT CURTIS DOES FOR TUBE BENDING SERVICES

Curtis Products provides tube bending services for OEM equipment manufacturers that need tight-tolerance tubing without the overhead of running bending equipment in-house. We bend steel, stainless steel, copper, and aluminum tubing from 1/8 inch to 3 inch OD, matching the bending method — manual fixture, power fixture, or CNC rotary — to the tolerance, radius, and volume the part calls for. Whether you're building coils, manifolds, exhaust runs, or fluid lines, a bad bend means a rejected assembly downstream, so precision tube bending is the whole job, not an add-on.

This page covers our tube bending services — what we bend, how, and for whom. For the specific machines on our floor, see the equipment list on our tube bending page — that page is the shop tour; this page is the buyer's guide to what we bend and who we bend it for.

PROCESS & CAPABILITIES

Every custom tube bending job starts with the print, or with a sample part if a print doesn't exist yet. From there we pick the method: manual fixture bending for short runs and prototypes, power fixture bending for mid-volume work, and CNC tube bending on rotary benders for repeatable runs that need tight-tolerance results across steel, stainless steel, copper, and aluminum tubing. Stainless steel tube bending is a common need for corrosion-resistant assemblies, and it runs through whichever method fits the wall and finish requirements.

When a part needs a tight-radius bend without wrinkling or thinning the tube wall — what most buyers mean when they ask about mandrel tube bending — that's a CNC rotary bending job. Confirm mandrel tooling and exact radius requirements with our engineers when you quote the part; we size the setup to the tube, not the other way around.

Bending rarely happens alone. Tubes that come off our bending equipment often move straight into end forming (flaring, flanging, swaging, ORFS), welding or brazing, punching, or finishing, all under one roof. That's the difference between a bending vendor and a full-service partner: we can take a part from raw tubing to a finished, ready-to-install assembly without it leaving our building.

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

Curtis Products has been bending tube since the 1950s, 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 built its quality process around prevention — receiving, in-process, and final inspections that document compliance before a part ships.

That history matters to OEM buyers for a practical reason: on-time delivery, design expertise, and competitive pricing don't happen by accident on a tight-tolerance job. Our tube bending services rest on launch planning tools like Team Feasibility Commitment, Design Review, and Mistake Proofing, applied before a new part ever hits full production, inside 254,000 square feet of dedicated plant space in South Bend, Indiana.

MATERIALS, SIZES, AND TOLERANCES

Curtis Products bends steel, stainless steel, copper, and aluminum tubing from 1/8 inch to 3 inch OD. Wall thickness, bend radius, and tolerance are set part by part — we size the tooling and method to what the print and the application require rather than forcing every job through one process. If your part needs a shear on tube up to 3 inch OD to complement a bend, or an end form to seal against a mating component, those capabilities sit on the same floor.

Low-volume and prototype orders get the same design attention as repeatable runs. If you're still finalizing a print, our rapid prototyping group can build a working prototype from your specs, or reverse engineer a sample part, so you can test and quote with confidence before committing to a full order.