Scarborough firm Unison marks 30 years since launching world's first tube bending machine

It’s an invention that has changed the way tube is bent by precision industries around the globe.

Convinced there was a better, more precise way of bending tube than by using the hydraulically operated machines of the day, in the late 1980s Unison’s founder, Terry Pickering, along with his son, Alan, who is now the company’s joint managing director, set about reinventing the process of tube manipulation.

Alan said: “It was no great secret that the accuracy of hydraulic tube bending machines could be affected by changing oil temperature.

“In other words, a machine with cold hydraulic oil at the start of a shift might well perform differently later in the day when its oil was hot.

“The greater viscosity of the cold oil, compared to that of hot oil, would typically result in the machine operator having to make temperature-related adjustments during the day to ensure satisfactory levels of repeatability.”

Unison’s ultimate goal was to take the black art out of tube bending as much as possible, by letting a CNC capture all the correct machine axis settings – in order to repeat them on future bends and get to a point where ‘right first time’ results were possible.

In 1992, Eastfield-based Unison secured a SMART award to develop three all-electric tube bending machines.

“At that point we were already well on the way to understanding what we would need to do to create the world’s first-ever all-electric tube bender,” said Alan.

Called the Unison Breeze, due to the speed and ease it brought to achieving repeatable tube manipulation, the world’s first all-electric three-axis tube bending machine was launched by Unison in 1994.

UK and German patents were registered, and right-first-time tube bending was born.

Over the following years, Unison developed and launched the world’s first all-electric five-stack tube bending machine, followed by the world’s first 76 mm, 115 mm, 150 mm and 180mm multi-stack machines, as well as robotised benders and twin-head tube benders for producing symmetrical, simultaneous bends.

“All-electric tube bending was a difficult sell for us at first,” said Alan.

“In fact it took a number of forward-thinking customers to put their faith in our technology before others would make the switch.

"However, our big breakthrough came when Airbus ordered their first all-electric tube bender from us – a machine that paid for itself in 16 weeks, in reduced scrap alone.

"As all-electric tube manipulation caught on, competition from the bigger players was inevitable, but we kept our heads down and kept on pushing forward.

“Today, all-electric tube bending machines are commonplace offerings from manufacturers from around the world.

"But I am proud to say that we remain the preferred choice of countless organisations from all manner of industry sectors.

"Whether it’s aerospace, performance automotive, marine, oil and gas, energy or general manufacturing, we take pride in building powerful, highly energy efficient machines that meet the challenges faced by our customers head on.

“I truly believe that 30 years on from the first Unison Breeze machine, we still have, and always will have, the edge.

"You could say we’re the original and best.”