People have been bending and curving metal for centuries, but stretch forming, born from the aerospace industry, maintains precise dimensions throughout a curve and produces perfectly contoured products while limiting, or even eliminating, wrinkling inside the arc.
Stretch forming is the process of forming sheets and profiles by the combined application of tensile and bending forces. Stretch forming keeps the extrusion under constant tension while wrapping it around a form, or die, to make parts into simple or complex contoured curves.
To deliver these stretch forming services, Linetec has teamed with Southern Stretch Forming, headquartered in Texas. The company will provide a full scope of bending capabilities on Linetec’s campus in Wausau, Wis., including annealing and tempering to soften and harden aluminum.
STRETCH FORM CAPABILITIES
Linetec and Southern Stretch Forming will work together, striving to meet every need of our customer. However, there may be some cases that an extrusions configuration are not suitable for curving/stretch forming. Below are some broad overview capabilities, if your needs are outside of these capabilities contact us directly at sales@linetec.com for assistance.
- Maximum arc length of 260 inches (larger lengths reviewed on individual basis
- Curved shapes up to 10 inches in width
- Full annealing and tempering
- Ability to manufacture and stretch form brake metal
- Custom die/tooling
- Thermal improvement services on curved metal, both thermal strut and poured thermal barriers
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For more information on Linetec and our stretch forming services, visit our website, linetec.com.