FAQs-Manufacturing
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3. Manufacturing Capabilities
a: Can Grayline manufacture custom diameters and wall thicknesses?
b: Do you offer custom color matching services?
c: Can Grayline provide me with small quantities of custom colors or sizes of heat shrinkable POLYOLEFIN tubing?
d: Will Grayline cut tubing to length for me?
e: Can Grayline print and/or hot stamp on their tubing?
f: Can Grayline shape, or heat form, tubing for me?
g: Can Grayline extrude any non-circular profiles?
h: Can you manufacture tapered tubing?
i: Can Grayline provide special packaging?
j: Will Grayline perform subassembly work for me?
k: Does Grayline offer multiple tubes bonded together, side by side?
3a: Can Grayline manufacture custom diameters and wall thicknesses?
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 tooling and manufacturing process capabilities to extrude tubing in a continuous range of diameters and we are not limited to the sizes of existing "hard" tooling.
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3b: Do you offer custom color matching services?
Yes, many of the polymers we use to manufacture flexible tubing can readily 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 an assembly, match or coordinate with your corporate color scheme, or give you just the right shade of color for that critical aesthetic application.
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3c: Can Grayline provide me with small quantities of custom colors or sizes of heat shrinkable POLYOLEFIN tubing?
Yes. Grayline also manufactures chemically cross-linked polyolefin tubing (in both heat shrinkable and non-heat shrinkable forms) that can be made in custom sizes and colors. Since this product is not irradiated but instead is chemically cross-linked, small quantity production runs are cost effective. If you need a specially sized, lime green polyolefin heat shrink tubing to match other components on your product…you've come to the right place.
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3d: Will Grayline cut tubing to length for me?
Absolutely! In fact, many customers prefer to have us cut their tubing for them. Not only can they reduce their costs but they obtain straighter and rounder lengths of tubing than they can by cutting tubing from reels. Grayline regularly ships tubing cut lengths ranging from 1/8 of an inch to 10 feet in length.
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3e: Can Grayline print and/or hot stamp on their tubing?
Grayline has inkjet printing capabilities that can be used to print in line, dot-matrix style, during the extrusion process. Grayline also offers hot stamping services, including both text and company logo images.
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3f: Can Grayline shape, or heat form, tubing for me?
Grayline welcomes the opportunity to review your part design to determine if a heat formed tubing part 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, wires, etc. around an obstacle, and they also reduce the likelihood of kinking and improve the overall appearance of the installation as well.
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3g: Can Grayline extrude any non-circular profiles?
Yes. 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 a better surface texture.
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3h: Can you manufacture tapered tubing?
By accurately controlling the extrusion parameters, Grayline can manufacture tapered tubing, which is sometimes used in "daisy chain" fashion, typically in medical applications. Of course, there are physical limitations on the amount of taper that can be incorporated in a design; please contact Grayline to discuss the requirements of your application.
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3i: Can Grayline provide special packaging?
Yes, 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.
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3j: Will Grayline perform subassembly work for me?
Yes, Grayline can provide you with subassemblies that incorporate tubing and other components as well. For example, Grayline assembles fittings onto a spiral reinforced hose to provide a customer with prepackaged hose assemblies that are ready for shipping.
As another example, Grayline inserts long lengths of PVC tubing into equal lengths of braided fiberglass sleeving at the request of another customer. Please contact Grayline to discuss your specific assembly needs.
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3k: Does Grayline offer multiple tubes bonded together, side by side?
Grayline can thermally bond tubing to tubing, as well as tubing to cable, to provide a neat and compact assembly.
Please contact Grayline with the specific requirements of your application.
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