Ashland Precision Tooling LLC., Ashland, Ohio, USA

Just yesterday there was an auction at Ashland Precision Tooling LLC, in Ohio, a company which described itself as a “Forge Tooling & Bearing Component Manufacturer”. The equipment being auctioned off included all the usual blah, blah, blah stuff but also some heat treating equipment most notably a Plateg Plasma nitrider/coater with working dimensions of 24” X 28”, built in 1997, an electric Surface Combustion 36 X 48 batch IQ furnace and a Surface endo generator. While we still don’t know what the Surface equipment sold for we do understand that the Plateg unit sold for $50,000 USD which caught our attention. Plateg is based in Germany and while they make good systems they are seldom heard of in North America due to their very limited north American marketing and restricted technical support.