We are pleased to inform you that Stewart Phillips has been appointed as Sales Manager of Cole tubes. Stewart has been at Cole for 7 years; previously he has been involved in Aluminium extrusions and non ferrous tubes. Stewart as many of you will be aware of has in depth knowledge of the cold drawn tube business and can be relied upon to give a speedy and competitive quotation to all of your enquires.

Stewart is supported by an extensive stock of both stock tube and hollows for drawing to your requirements. We can provide all customers with a facility for drawing down your redundant stock to useful sizes. We also carry a stock of standard heat exchanger sizes that can de delivered to any location in the world.

Please contact Stewart on 0044 118 989 6021 or e-mail sphillips@tubeco.com

Cole Tubes Limited and Swallow Metals & Components Limited merged at the end of March 2005 and will trade as Cole & Swallow Materials Limited. The name recognises the history of both companies, each respected in their own fields of expertise, but signals a new start. Both old and new visitors to the website are encouraged to review our product range which has been significantly extended.

Swallow Metals Relocated

In May 2004 we relocated a sister company, Swallow Metals & Components, onto the Wokingham site from their base in Theale. Swallow offer a wide range of tube and other metal & ceramic products as well as having some fabrication capability. Swallow also have a long history of materials & inventory management services and the new team will be supporting Cole & Swallow' stockholding capabilities.

In order to reduce confusion we will be renaming ourselves Cole & Swallow and you will start to see this name on faxes and letterheads during the rest of this year.

In January 2004 Cole Tubes was acquired by the Brown McFarlane Group of Companies. This investment is part of the ongoing development of the group into special materials.

"BrownMac" acquired Swallow Metals & Components, based in nearby Theale, in 1998 and it is the intention to combine the two businesses to form the basis of a Non-ferrous Division. The Cole Tubes Management Team will run the combined organisation.

Aluminium Heat Treatment

Cole & Swallow Limited have announced the installation of enhanced heat treatment equipment specifically to allow quenching. This will primarily be used for high strength aluminium alloys requiring T4 or T6 conditioning and variants. Managing Director Mark Tur says: 'The manufacture of precision tube is unusual in that long length products are the norm but the market size is relatively small so few people invest in dedicated plant. We have plenty of organisations offering specialist heat treatment but not on such long products; to them our work has always been a pain. We have to pay dearly in terms of cost and time. Having our own facility allows us to control turn-round times and improves the flexibility we need to service our most demanding customers. Doing it in house also gives us some significant technical advantages in terms of dimensional & mechanical specifications. We are able to achieve tolerances usually only provided by machining and we have an increasing number of clients that have reduced machine time by specifying precision drawn tube. Machining time can also be improved by specifying the alloy in hard conditions which improves the machining index.' Quenching is also applicable to some special brass alloys.

Alloy 400/ UNS N04400/ NA13/ Monel 400

Cole & Swallow has developed processes for the manufacture alloy 400 and offers quick lead times on small quantities or in sizes not usually held in stock. The size range may be limitied initially but we are always ready to expand if the market requires it. Tube up to 19.05 mm and down as small as 2 mm will be offered in a number of wall thickness options.Alloy 400 is a widely used and specificed alloy for corrosion resistant environments but still retains ductility compared to high chromium alloys. For this reason the alloy has great user friendliness for fabricators and welders.

Monel is a trademark of Special Metals

Bimetallic Tube Capabilities Enhanced

When complex working environments mean that copper alloys on their own cannot provide a heat exchange or engineering solution, it may be possible to use a bimetallic tube. Combined tubes can be produced with copper alloy, aluminium, titanium, carbon or stainless steel combinations. These give combined properties of heat exchange, strength and corrosion resistance that single tubes cannot provide. A special version of this product is the high heat transfer Leak Detector Tube which can also be offered in a number of material combinations. This product is employed in coolers that cannot fail without warning - for example on critical oil coolers on pumps or generators. The inclusion of flow galleries between the inner and outer tube allows inner tube failure to be discovered before full unit failure. This allows maintenance to be done in preventative rather than rescue mode. End options include machining back the outer tube to allow fitting and ferrules. Ferrules are made in the same material as the inner tube and are fitted to ensure the "wetted" ends are all of one material type.

For further information go to "Bimetallic Tubing" in Product Guide.

We are pleased to advise that two of our key agency relationships have been re-established:

Both companies have long experience in special tube products and have an established relationship with Cole & Swallow going back over many years. They will be pleased to assist in any way possible.

Both these agencies are for all products manufactured at Cole & Swallow: including Naval Engineering Specification (NES) and Mil. Spec. tube, heat exchanger tube and other high integrity products for engineering use. For full details see the capability overview table.