USA Heat Treater “Bucks” Trend by Adding Mesh Belt Furnace Capacity
Earlier this year “The Monty” had an in-depth article entitled “Why are so Many North American Commercial Heat Treaters Closing?”, the article can be found further down on this page.
Included in our list of commercial heat treaters closing were four firms which specialized in large volume continuous work; “Commercial Steel Treating” in Michigan, “American Steel Treating” in Perrysburg, Ohio, “Elm Plating” in Michigan (which will be ending production the end of 2025) and “AMAC Industries” of Cleveland, Ohio.
Together these 4 firms represented an enormous amount of continuous heat treating, to counter balance this loss of capacity only one firm that we know of added mesh belt capacity, “B & D Cold Heading” in Michigan “Manufacturer Brings Heat Treat in House-A Case Study”.
“The Monty” has long felt that this lack of capacity would be felt and that another heat treater would add capacity; this has turned out to be correct.
Family-owned commercial heat treater “Industrial Steel Treating” in Jackson, Michigan is rated as one of the “52 Largest North American Commercial Heat Treaters” by “The Monty”. “Tim Levy”, President and Owner of the firm has been “teasing” the industry for some time about a major new investment, the investment turns out to be a mesh belt furnace line provided by “Can-Eng” of Niagara Falls, Canada.Beyond these two photos no details are provided, but our best guess is that the furnace will have a capacity of 6,000 pounds/hour, will be gas fired with an endothermic atmosphere and oil quenching; designed for processing high volume automotive fasteners-we will see if our guess proves correct or not.
Total investment for the furnace and installation we would guess will be in the neighborhood of $4 million USD-again this is a guess.We are sure detailed press releases will be forthcoming and when they are “The Monty” will share them with you.
“JUNE 30, 2025; Two More USA Commercial Heat Treaters to Close; 2025 has seen an unusually high number of commercial heat treaters in the USA closing their doors, “The Monty” now has word that two more, medium sized facilities in the US Midwest will be closing down for good, one almost immediately, the other over the course of the coming year.
As more details become available, we will update this story.
A relatively complete list of the USA commercial heat treaters closing in the past year (along with one Canadian firm) can be found below in an article published by; “The Monty Heat Treat News” June 30th of this year; “Why Are So Many North American Commercial Heat Treaters Closing”? In this article we summarize the many and varied reason that commercial heat treats close down.
“JUNE 30th 2025; Why are so Many North American Commercial Heat Treaters Closing?; If it seems like commercial heat treatment firms in North America have been dropping like flies over the past year you can certainly be forgiven for thinking so. Over the course of the past year “The Monty Heat Treat News” has mentioned at least 12 firms that have closed, with at least two more to be mentioned in the next few weeks. This prompts the question “Why Ae So Many North American Commercial Heat Treaters Closing”?
There are three schools of thoughts on this rather depressing trend; the first holds that manufacturers are bringing more heat treating in house leading to lower volumes going to commercial operations. The second suggests that uncertainty in the automotive sector and an overcapacity in the commercial heat treat industry is leading commercial treaters to adjust to these new realities. And the 3rd school of thought offers that large government subsidies during the Covid Pandemic kept many commercial operations afloat long after they should have closed down.
(To bolster the views of those in the first camp who believe manufacturers are bringing more heat treating in house leading to a decline in volumes for commercial heat treaters we would suggest this article; “More Manufacturers Bringing Heat Treating in House?” written by Mr. Marco Baretti of vacuum furnace builder “TAV”. Granted Marco wrote this from a European heat treat perspective but we believe that many of the thoughts are applicable to North America also).
The list below shows some but not all of the commercial heat treaters in North America which have closed in the past year-the team at “The Monty”looked at each one to determine why they closed down and we came to some very interesting conclusions-basically that there are a wide variety of reasons why heat treats close down. Our conclusions are below this list (please note that two firms on this list will be announcing their closures in the next few weeks, at this point in time we choose not to identify them).
Commercial Steel Treating, Michigan; https://themonty.com/another-usa-commercial-heat-treater-closes-its-doors/?no_cache=1
American Steel Treating, Ohio: https://themonty.com/substantial-us-heat-treater-to-close-april-1-2025/
Cambridge Heat Treating, Ontario; https://themonty.com/cambridge-heat-treating-celebrates-40th-anniversary/
Weiss Industries, Ohio; https://weissind.com/
Elm Plating, Michigan; https://themonty.com/us-company-to-exit-commercial-heat-treating/ Elm Plating
AMAC Industries, Ohio; https://themonty.com/ohio-usa-metal-processing-company-to-temporarily-slow-down-halt-production/
Bodycote, California; https://themonty.com/usa-commercial-heat-treat-facility-to-close/
Katy Heat Treat, Texas; https://themonty.com/texas-heat-treater-closing-why-are-so-many-north-american-commercial-heat-treaters-closing/
Missouri Heat Treat, Missouri; https://themonty.com/another-usa-commercial-heat-treat-closes-its-doors/
MT Heat Treat/Quality Steels/Metallurgical Services; https://themonty.com/what-the-heck-is-happening-to-heat-treating-in-ohio-usa/
Commercial heat treats close down for any number of different reasons, using the above examples these are the conclusions we came to;
Retirement; In the case of two of these firms including “Cambridge Heat Treating” the owners with no family members to take over the business and unable to find a buyer decided to liquidate the businesses. In both cases hard assets such as land, building and equipment was greater than the value of the business as a going concern.
Tariffs; One of the companies on this list, “Amac Industries” closed because new US tariffs meant their largest customer found it made more sense to keep the heat treating in Canada as opposed to sending it to the US.
Consolidation; Three of these closures were the result of multi-location commercial heat treaters consolidating operations.
Older Technologies; We always had a high opinion of “Amercian Steel Treating” in Perrysburg, Ohio which at one time was an industry leader in automated pusher furnaces. However, the firm never moved beyond what has become an older technology and that combined with the fact that their fortunes were tied to the auto industry proved to be too large a challenge for the company.
Lack of Profits; In a couple of cases firms found that their margins on heat treating were so small that the decision was made to pivot away from commercial heat treating in favor of other business units.
Stupidity & Incompetence; And of course in at least two cases sheer incompetence, stupidity and greed led to the demise of what were once good solid businesses.
While it would appear to be doom and gloom in the commercial heat treat industry in North America, at the end of the day we can’t lose track of the fact that there are over 500 commercial heat treat locations in North America and a failure of even 15 commercial heat treats represents a very tiny % of the overall market.”