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History of Tubing

Tubing is an item that most people think little about. Other than the obvious exhaust pipe or water lines, many do not know what it is used for. Yet each day they travel by planes, trains and automobiles to their homes. Here they find comfort using the gas range and furnace, sitting in comfortable lawn and kitchen chairs, or loading the dishwasher after eating out of their refrigerators. All are made available by the use of tubing. Lightweight and practical tubing is used by almost everyone in the world everyday, but where was tubing only a few short years ago?

You would never think of tubing as being the DOT-COMs of the metal industry, but truly tubing is relatively new. Other uses of metal have been documented since the early ages of man, but tubing as we know it has been around for only 200 years and even less! The Bible talks about metal being melted and cast in Exodus 32:3 as the Golden Calf, (also Isaiah 44:10) and of being cut by file (1 SAM 13:2). Iron tools are mentioned in 1 KINGS 6:7, as well as metal being formed and soldered in Isaiah 41:7, but nowhere do you hear about tubing. To move water, solid rock was hollowed out or aqueducts were built. There was no need for gas lines and oil still came from whales.

The Chinese were one of the first civilizations to use tubing in the form of reeds to pipe water. Here in the United States, hollowed out trees were used for waterlines and in some places still exist in our water systems. Cast iron was used to pipe water in England in the 1700's in the form of seamless pipe. While iron could be curved inward and could be soldered closed, it was not practical.

The Bessemer converter furnace process of making malleable low carbon steel in 1926 allowed steel to be rolled practically into a hollow bar. Adding the technology of electric arc welding we had a method to produce tubing economically. Today we call this method Cold Rolled Electric Welded steel tubing (CREW), or if using hot roll steel (HREW). That means electric weld tubing has only been around for 75 years. Compare the computer in 1986 just 18 years ago to Woolf Aircraft Product's start in 1942. It was only 15 years after CREW was perfected that we fabricated our first tubing. Truly we are one of the few DOT-COMS of the tubing industry.

World War II gave tubing its greatest start. Here was an inexpensive lightweight product useful in aircraft, automotive and shipbuilding, easy to make, form and join together in large quantities. Tubing changed many applications, providing a lightweight alternative to castings and forgings. With the improvements in metal technology, tubing was developed which could withstand sustained high temperatures, which has allowed us to build the jet engines and make space travel common place today. Today hydroformed tubing is used to produce automotive and truck frames with intricate shapes, making vehicles lighter yet stronger. New technologies are being applied to tubing making our lives easier and more fulfilling. The use of tubing continues to grow. Can we be a part of that growth with you?