The big news for last week was the announcement that Can Eng Furnaces International, one of the largest furnace builders in North America has new ownership (the press release can be found at New Ownership for Furnace Builder Can-Eng Furnaces International Limited | The Monty). Can Eng was founded in 1964 in Niagara Falls, Ontario Canada and has serviced the worldwide heat treating market ever since. While the company is good at many things when we think of them we think mesh belt furnace lines and we are pleased to say that we watched the company introduce the technology into North America.

Going back to the late 1970’s, early 1980’s Can Eng brought mesh belt furnaces into North America through an agreement with a Japanese company that had developed the process. Wally Bamford (owner at the time), Pete Mackenzie, Director of Engineering and John Kay, Sales Manager were absolutely convinced that mesh belt furnaces had tremendous advantages over what was common at the time, cast link belt lines. As we know they were proven correct and today cast link belts have been relegated to a very small part of the market, mainly for large heavy parts only. At the time of introduction a large mesh belt line was 500-1,000 pounds per hour, now it is not uncommon to see lines capable of 6,000 pounds per hour. There is no question that Can Eng has provided more mesh belt lines in North America than any other furnace manufacturer in the world. Having said that though we have visited furnace builders in China who produce one mesh furnace each and every week of the year the vast bulk of which are for the fastener market.

We have a couple of examples of installed mesh belt lines, including a small line in Mexico (above) and a large 6,000 pound per hour line at Metex Heat Treat in Canada below (Metex will be featured on “The Heat Treat Podcast” within the next few weeks). Incidentally we don’t believe any substantial changes are planned for Can Eng although only time will tell.

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 Tim Donofrio, VP, Sales Can Eng (Center)

Raman Bawa, Metex, Jordan Montgomery “The Monty”