One additional point, which we are sometimes asked is what is the minimum straight length required between bends. In particular, it is worth reiterating that, wherever possible, you should design your tubes with only one bend radius. Unless you are experienced in designing tube components, we would strongly recommend that you read our Tube Bending Design Guide. This will allow us to provide you with a rapid quotation and a short production lead-time. If you can base your designs around the tube diameter and bend radii for which we have existing bend former tooling, you will avoid both the cost and lead time issues of new tooling. We have built up a very extensive suite of tooling over many years, so please do not assume that other suppliers will have the same options available. Therefore, in this guide, in contrast to the others where the standard principles apply whichever tube manipulator a customer chooses to use, the tooling size information relates directly to Listertube. However, we are often asked to give specific advice on which tube diameters and bend radii customers should use if they want to be sure that we will have the tooling already available.

In our very well received Tube Bending Design Guide, and our End Forming Guide, we have provided general advice on how to produce designs that are best suited to production.