Not rarely tube hydroforming regards pipes of short lenght. Due to this short lenght these pipes are of difficult or even impossible processing by hydroforming both for technical reasons as well for the efficiency of production.
In order to avoid these difficulties one possible and often used solution is to hydroform a longer tube as a multiple in lenght of the single final piece (usually up to 5 pieces of the final tube on a sole tube).
Moreover, if the final product needs a preliminary bending before hydroforming, the bending is done on a tube with a lenght multiple of the lenght of the final tube. This longer tube is commonly referred as SNAKE.
In this video it is possible to watch at tube bending in order to obtain a SNAKE ready for hydroforming with automatic cut of the SNAKE from the remaining rod.