Tube fabrication, inside Fusion

From bent designs
to straight cutting blanks.

Design, cope, and mark tubes in Fusion. Unbend them into straight cutting blanks with the cut geometry and reference marks preserved.

See plans ↗Explore the features →

Fusion add-in · Windows supported
Fusion license purchased separately.

SEE THE ACTUAL OUTPUTTube Shop / Fusion

Before / Bent tube

After / Straight blank

The same tube, bent and developed. Its identification, bend text, and reference marks stay with the blank.

Explore this workflow

See what goes
to the shop.

Fabrication packet ↗Cut list, tube card, bend instructions and tables.Developed cutting blanks ↗Compare the bent tube with its straight blank.Full-scale wrap templates ↗Open an actual joint layout and reference marks.

For years, we listened to the same complaints echo across the tube fabrication industry — and as users of that software, we were making them too: software that locks you to hardware, setups that take too long, and tools that simply do not understand the realities of the shop floor.

As a husband-and-wife team, we decided to stop talking about the gap and start building the solution. We put in the hard work to design a tube fabrication software that eliminates your daily headaches and make your production easier. We desire to help professionals and hobbyists alike.

Discover intuitive tools built from real shop-floor feedback to get your jobs done faster and more accurately.

Introducing

From design to fabrication.Tube Shop, the Fusion 360 add-in for tube fabrication.

Design Build a tube through measured points or sketch lines, using your die radius.Cope Prepare intersecting tube ends, including miter corners and tab-and-slot joints.Bend Take the feed, rotation, and bend sequence to the shop in a fabrication packet.Cut Develop a straight blank with its cut geometry and reference marks preserved.Meet the people behind Tube Shop →

Tube Shop by Apex Design is the industry’s most feature-rich tube fabrication software.

It packs more built-in tools than any other platform to supercharge your workshop productivity.

Design

Tubes through the points you measured, built on the radius of the die you own.

Drawn on your die

Points placed from a datum, tubes built through them or from sketch lines, every bend cornered at the die's calibrated radius. Move a point and the tube rebuilds in place; a leg too short to grip shows in the dialog, not on the floor.

Cope

Select the tubes that meet. Every branch end is trimmed and normalized for the cut.

Sampled, not guessed

Each branch is copied in memory, boolean-cut against every host it touches, and sampled into 180 bins around its axis. The real tube then takes one square rotary cut.

Bend

L/R/A rows built on the calibrated radius of the die you are putting in the machine.

Built on your die

L/R/A rows in feed order on the calibrated centreline radius of the die you are putting in the machine, with the springback you measured on it. The developed blank length comes with them.

Cut

Parts nest onto your stick; the program posts for the machine you own, pierce points and mark passes included.

More than G-code

Parts pack onto the stick length you actually buy, with kerf, the chuck zone and the drop modeled. The nest posts for your controller and writes the developed DXF, 1:1 wrap templates and the cut list beside it, pierce points and cycle time known before you load the stick.

Side by side

One pipeline.
Two very different shops.

Bending calculations

Professionals: Maximizes shop throughput and drastically reduces scrap metal costs
Hobbyists: Saves money by eliminating trial-and-error tube wasting

Software interface

Professionals: Straightened tubes developed on your die calibration, exported to .IGS. Cope clocking and wall cut features are tracked through multiple bend planes. Import into TubesT and set your layers.
Hobbyists: Simple, fast learning curve without requiring an engineering degree

Design integrity

Professionals: Delivers repeatable, mathematically precise blueprints for production
Hobbyists: Gives the confidence to build a safe, track legal cage or chassis in your own garage

Key benefits	Professionals	Hobbyists
Bending calculations	Maximizes shop throughput and drastically reduces scrap metal costs	Saves money by eliminating trial-and-error tube wasting
Software interface	Straightened tubes developed on your die calibration, exported to .IGS. Cope clocking and wall cut features are tracked through multiple bend planes. Import into TubesT and set your layers.	Simple, fast learning curve without requiring an engineering degree
Design integrity	Delivers repeatable, mathematically precise blueprints for production	Gives the confidence to build a safe, track legal cage or chassis in your own garage

See Pricing WALK THE 3D TOUR ↗

Works inside Fusion

Tube Shop is a Fusion add-in. Your Fusion license is purchased separately from Autodesk.

Windows supported

Windows is the platform we test on and support. The examples here show the real add-in and its outputs.

Check your cutting workflow

Machine and CAM requirements vary. Tell us which machine and software you use so we can help you check the fit.

The Fusion 360 add-in

One licence, checked on your own machine. The whole pipeline: copes, bend sheets, wraps, nesting and G-code.

Perpetual$2,500.00

First 12 months maintenance included · then $500/yr, optional

Subscription$149.00/mo

Cancel any time · runs to the end of the paid month · updates included while you subscribe

Refunds: It activates and runs on your machine or you get your money back — 7 days to report it. A change of mind is not a refund. On the subscription the first month is covered the same way; later monthly payments are final, and cancelling stops the next one. Refund policy

Get build updates as they go out

What shipped, what broke, what changed. Sent when there is something worth sending, not on a schedule — and nothing else. One click to stop.

From bent designsto straight cutting blanks.