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Authors - George Winton
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Articles written by George Winton


George Winton

George Winton

Winton Machine Co.

3644 Burnette Road
Suwanee, GA 30024
phone: 888-321-1499

Results: 15

Assessing the arc

Large-radius bends are used in many places, such as appliance handles and automobile components. For measuring large-radius bends, fabricators have at least three options: go/no-go fixtures, entering the bent part’s measurements into a CAD program and using it to calculate the radius, and a...


Holding the dies


Getting a grip on tube bending


Ironing the wrinkles out of copper tubing

A wiper die is helpful for making wrinkle-free bends. Understanding how one works can help you decide if you need to use one.


Get the slug out

Punching a hole in a tube is one thing; getting the slug out is something else altogether. Even if most of the slugs exit without a problem, the occasional hanging slug can cause a serious problem. Two methods are mechanical force and air pressure.


Sizing up the job

Accounting is straightforward, but it’s not iron-clad; fabricators have latitude in the accounting system they use to bid on contracts. A bottom-up approach, one that analyzes all the costs that go into making a component, is suitable for many parts. A top-down approach looks at the part and...


The axis of safety

A tube bender can be considered a collection of power presses and, as such, it needs more than just a few conventional barriers between the operator and the machine. Safety mats, interlocked switches, emergency-stop switches, and interlocked side plates are a few of the safety devices available...


Feeding the process

Whether a bending process starts with a cut length of tubular product or a coil, gravitational or torsional forces can lead to unwanted variations in the finished product. In the case of gravity, tube supports can counteract it; for torsion, it’s a matter of matching the coil’s output to the...


Doing more with less

Loading and unloading tube for fabricating often is a manual process. Because labor rates in the U.S. are higher than those in many other countries, manual loading and unloading isn’t competitive. Using an automatic loader/unloader can change that, moving an operation from red to black.


Making a workhorse run


Putting a few end forming basics to work

Whether maintaining or changing the OD, knowing the basics of end forming—especially friction and lubrication—can help achieve a successful result.


Coax Facts

Continuous improvement and statistical process control are useful,time-tested techniques—they have been used since the 1950s—buttheir use must be tailored to specific applications. For example, atypical manufacturing metric is parts per minute, but many rollformers should measure feet...


The ins and outs of extrusion bending

Extrusions can be tricky to bend and handle. Paying close attention tobender selection, die design, programming, and material handling can help to ensure efficient and productive bending.


Serpentine bending in production

Bending serpentine profiles—successive 180-degree bends, which typically are used in refrigeration systems—can be a challenge. By their nature, they tend to cause interference among the various bend dies, and they can be difficult to handle. Good planning in selecting a bender,...


From the CAD station to the production floor

Conventional tube bending data, regardless of format, is entered manually and therefore susceptible to errors. A modern approach involves using a CAD system to generate a STEP file, which the CAD program exports directly to the bending machine. This method is fast and eliminates errors. The...