Every Tube Needs an Ending

Flares, beads, reductions, expansions, and custom geometries. All formed in-house.

Overview

A Bad End Form Leaks, Slips, or Fails

The end of the tube is where the connection lives. Where your assembly seals, clamps, or mates to the next component. Get it wrong and you're chasing leaks, reworking joints, or adding hardware that shouldn't be there.

H-P maintains a large inventory of standard end forming tooling and an in-house machine shop that designs and builds custom tooling when off-the-shelf won't cut it. Bending, cutting, forming, and welding all happen under one roof.

Tube end forming example showing formed exhaust tube connections
Capabilities

End Form Types

Standard and custom end forms for connection, sealing, and assembly.

End Form Description
Flares Conical tube end that mates with fittings or clamp connections. You'll see these everywhere in exhaust and fluid transfer.
Spherical Flares Rounded flare that self-centers during assembly. Better sealing contact than a standard flare on slip-joint connections.
Marmon Flares & FlangesPopular Single and double Marmon profiles designed to mate with V-band clamps. Widely used in exhaust, air intake, and charged air cooling systems.
Hose Beads Raised bead around the tube OD that gives the hose something to grab onto. Keeps clamps from slipping under vibration.
Reductions Steps the tube OD down so it can slip into a smaller-diameter component. Common in telescoping assemblies and transition joints.
Expansions Opens up the tube OD (male or female) to accept a mating tube or fitting. Think telescoping, nesting, or tube-over-tube joints.
Straight Attachments Clean, square-cut end prepped for welding or brazing directly to brackets, flanges, or other components.
Flanges Flat or contoured flange at the tube end for bolted connections, gasket sealing, or structural mounting points.
Grooves Circumferential groove for O-ring seating, snap-ring retention, or coupling engagement. Holds the seal where it needs to be.
Slots Precision slots at the tube end for clamp engagement, alignment keying, or thermal expansion relief.
TORCA Slots Specialized slot pattern designed for TORCA-style ball-and-socket exhaust clamp connections.
Our Approach

Standard Tooling. Custom Capability.

Two paths to the right end form, both backed by our in-house machine shop and engineering team.

Fast Turnaround

Standard End Forms

Our large inventory of industry-standard tooling covers the most common end form types and sizes. Standard setups mean faster quoting, shorter lead times, and proven repeatability.

Built for You

Custom End Forms

When standard tooling doesn't fit, our machine shop designs and builds custom end forming tools in-house. Engineering, tooling, prototyping, and production. One roof, one team.

Skip the Weld Entirely

Every weld is a potential failure point. A crack, a leak, a warranty claim. In many cases, a custom end form can replace that weld altogether. Fewer operations, fewer failure modes, lower cost. If your assembly has a welded tube joint, it's worth asking whether forming could do the job instead.

Common Questions

End Forming FAQ

We offer a full range of end forms including flares, spherical flares, Marmon and double Marmon flares, hose beads, reductions, expansions (male and female), straight attachments, flanges, grooves, slots, and TORCA slots. For applications that need something beyond these standard types, our machine shop designs and builds custom tooling in-house.
Yes. A properly designed end form can replace a welded joint. No weld failures, no leak paths, and often lower cost per part. Whether it makes sense depends on the geometry and loading of the joint. Send us your print and we'll tell you if it's a candidate.
Standard end forms use tooling we already have on the shelf. Fast to quote, fast to set up. Custom end forms get designed and built by our machine shop when standard won't work. Either way, it all happens in-house.
We end form carbon steel (1006–1026), stainless steel (304, 316, 409, 439), aluminum (6061, 6063, 5052), and aluminized steel (1006–1010). Material selection depends on your application. Include it in your RFQ and we'll confirm compatibility.
Yes. End forming is usually one step in a multi-operation part, paired with bending, laser cutting, or welding. Everything runs in-house, so parts move between processes without shipping between vendors or losing context on specs.
Related Capabilities

Part of the Full Picture

Have a Connection Problem to Solve?

Send us the print. We'll figure out the end form.