Tubing Options and Custom Services Offered by Grayline

Many customers prefer to have us cut their tubing for them, not only to reduce their costs but to receive straighter and rounder lengths of tubing than they can obtain by cutting tubing from small diameter reels themselves. As a manufacturer, we can cut non-heat shrinkable tubing to lengths ranging from 1/8 of an inch to 10 feet using state of the art, high speed inline cutting equipment during the extrusion process. Heat shrinkable PVC tubing is cut to length from large diameter production reels, rather than small reels taken from stock.

As a manufacturer, Grayline isn't limited to stock sizes. If your application would benefit from a non-standard diameter or wall thickness, Grayline can help. Grayline has the manufacturing capability to extrude tubing in a continuous range of diameters and is not limited to the sizes of existing tooling.

Many of the polymers we use to manufacture flexible tubing can be custom colored, including both opaque and transparent polymers. Since Grayline blends our own colored compounds, we can use the appropriate pigment additives to match other parts in your assembly, match or coordinate with your corporate color scheme, or give you just the right shade of color for that critical aesthetic application. We even offer intense, glow-in-the-dark tubing that is manufactured using special photoluminescent additives.

Although Grayline has standard ID, wall and length tolerances that meet or exceed most application requirements, statistical process capability studies are used to determine if requests for tighter than standard tolerances can be met. Contact customer service to discuss your special tolerance requirements.

Grayline has high-speed inkjet printing capabilities that can be used to print inline during the extrusion process. Printing can be synchronized with the cutting process so that the printing can be placed in any desired position along the length of the tubing. If the product is reeled rather than cut to length, the center-to-center print spacing must be specified. Grayline can print characters from 1/16" to 5/16" tall, including up to four lines of text. Bar codes, serialized numbers and date/time codes are also available. The standard ink color is black.

When precise, high quality graphics such as company logos are required, hot stamping services are also available. The hot stamping process uses a heated die to apply ink to the tubing.

Grayline welcomes the opportunity to review your part design to determine if a heat formed tube might be an option. Similar in concept to pre-shaped radiator hoses found in automobiles, heat formed tubing shapes are often used to precisely route fluids or wires around an obstacle, reduce the likelihood of kinking, and improve the overall appearance of the product.

Grayline has the ability to supply you with non-circular profiles as well as round tubing. For example, tubing cross sections can be oval shaped or "D" shaped. Tubing can also include internal ribbing to improve gripping ability over a substrate, or external ribbing to provide an improved surface texture.

Grayline offers multi-tube assemblies in which tubing is bonded side-by-side for convenient and efficient routing of wires or fluids. Please contact Grayline with the specific requirements of your application.

Grayline can provide your tubing in boxes, heat sealed bags, on reels, or in coil form. Grayline can also provide customer-specific labeling, including bar coding.