Sharpe Products, one of North America’s leading specialists in custom tube and pipe bending and tube laser cutting, has ordered the all-electric Unison Breeze CNC tube bending machine that will form the centrepiece of Unison Tube LLC’s display at FABTECH in Chicago, September 11 – 14.
The machine, a 100 mm (4”) single-stack model, will be on display at Unison’s FABTECH Booth – # D41930 – after which it will be installed at Sharpe Products’ Wisconsin-based manufacturing plant. It will be the ninth Unison Breeze tube bender that has been purchased by Sharpe Products since 2003 and will be used to provide additional capacity for bending tubular components for the company’s extensive customer base.
Sharpe Products and UK-based tube bending machinery manufacturer Unison Ltd have a long and proud history of working together. Sharpe’s President and CEO, Paul Krickeberg, was an early convert to the idea of all-electric tube bending and bought one of the very first British-built Unison Breeze machines in the United States.
“This latest Unison Breeze tube bending machine will help to support our ability to offer short lead times and consistent results – attributes that are essential to our customers,” says Mr Krickeberg. “We’ve worked with Unison for numerous years and look forward to installing this next generation machine at our plant.”
“We’re absolutely delighted that Sharpe Products has chosen to purchase yet another Unison Breeze all-electric tube bending machine,” says Stuart Singleton, VP of Unison Tube LLC. “As you can imagine, such impressive repeat orders are an incredible testimony to the faith a customer places in our machine technologies, operating software and product support. The new 100 mm Breeze machine will bring valuable extra capacity to one of our longest-standing customers in the US. Equipped with the latest version of our Unibend control system, it will deliver cycle time speed improvements in the region of 25% compared to earlier versions. It also incorporates innovative new teach routines and simulation features.”
UK-based Unison Ltd invented ultra-precise, all-electric tube and pipe bending, and the Breeze 100 mm (maximum tube diameter) machine is one of its flagship models. Just like all Unison Breeze tube bending machines, the 100 mm/4” Breeze offers rapid setup, fast tooling changes, exceptional power, rigid mechanical design, and all-electric control for right-first-time repeat sub-contract work, or immediately after producing a single trial part. These are all attributes that Unison Ltd believes make its Breeze models the ultimate tube manipulation machines for businesses specialising in frequently changing, small-to-medium batch production runs.
Other single-stack Unison Breeze machines operated by Sharpe Products include 80 mm (3”) and 100 mm (4”) variants. Sharpe also has 76 mm (3”), 80 mm (3”) and 130 mm (5”) multi-stack Breeze machines – each able to accommodate several tools for rapid changeover between bending cycles.
Unison Tube LLC is the North American division of Unison Ltd, the UK’s leading manufacturer of tube and pipe bending machines, offering the largest range of all-electric benders for diameters from 4 mm (5/32”) to 275 mm (10”). Unison Ltd manufactured the world’s first all-electric tube bender in 1994, followed by the world’s first all-electric multi-stack tube bender, then the world’s largest all-electric tube bender for the shipbuilding industry. Available in single-stack, multi-stack and right/left varieties, Unison machines are delivered to more than 20 countries globally. Written and supported by Unison, the company’s tube bending software is widely recognised as the most user-friendly control system for tube bending machines.
www.unisonltd.com