Proto-1 Manufacturing has found their niche in the tube and pipe industry by producing equipment to take a prototype part from the design stage to a production environment, or perform short production runs which cannot justify purchase of equipment. A fully staffed engineering department can assist customers with development of progressive tube end forming systems requiring single or combinations of beading, flaring, cut off after bend, offset expansion, swaging, pinch trim, piercing, coping, saddle or scarf cuts, slotting and deburring of metal tube to very close tolerances. As the founders of the company, John and Valerie Schwochert started with a basic concept for safe, efficient rotary deburring of tube and pipe. John continued to improve upon his original design for a debur tool

until the current Roto-D-Bur head was developed, and upon the completion of patenting the process, Proto-1 Manufacturing was born. In the process of calling on deburring customers, John saw the need for other types of tube processing equipment and fixtures which lead the business into offering rotary tube cutoff, rotary tube forming and progressive ram forming equipment.

Today Proto-1 offers a full line of machines for tube deburring and chamfering, rotary tube end forming systems, sizing, notching, and ram forming presses from 18 through 70 tons. The largest RAM-70 forming press equipped with 6 hit, progressive forming shuttle toolstick and quick change dies is capable of complex end forms like those found in stainless steel diesel exhaust applications up to 9 inch diameter. Features like touchscreen controls, perimeter safety light curtains, flood coolant, and autolube system allow Proto-1 to provide their customers with the most versatile lineup of machines in the industry for the production of tubular parts.

Some recent Proto-1 innovations:

- Swaging tubes from 7 inch to 5 inch diameter.

- Progressive offset tube expansions to 200% of diameter.

- Rotary forming of tube flare & bead up to 15 inch    diameter.

- Simple & cost effective notching machine.

- Expand/bend/bead and pinch trim to length in one setup.

- Single minute exchange of dies (SMED).

- Small tube cutoff up to tangent of bend.

- 6 inch deep sizer.

- A new debur head for beaded tube deburring.