“Metalex Thermal Specialties in Berthoud, Colorado, USA just completed accreditation to provide its heat treating services for the aerospace industry complementing the long list of other industries it serves. “There’s a large aerospace industry here in Colorado, and there was no heat treater before us that’s certified to do that, so they’re shipped out of state,” said Chris James, co-owner and general manager of Metalex Thermal Specialties, 205 Turner Ave. “To grow our business, we wanted to get accredited to start processing that type of work and keep it in the state of Colorado.”
Metalex received the certification, AS9100, in May to be able to process parts used in the aerospace industry, including those for the engine and the fuel system and for the landing and other gears. “It shows we follow the strict quality system (controls) accepted in the aerospace industry,” James said.
James and his parents, Bruce and Debra James, purchased Metalex in September 2020, in business under that name since 2005, when the former owner purchased it. Before then it was called Thermal Specialties. “My mom and I worked for a heat treating company in California,” James said. “We were wanting to get our own business, and we wanted to move to Colorado.”
The James family didn’t make any major changes right away, but did immediately put a focus on customer service and improving the turnaround time to five days for parts. They heat treat knife blades, plungers and other parts for the oil and gas industry, parts for food processing equipment, and axle shafts and bearings and gears for automobiles. They also
heat treat metal molds used to make plastic parts. They heat treat an average of 90,000 to 100,000 parts a month.
Heat treating is a process that hardens metal to improve its toughness, wear-resistance and corrosion resistance. The metal is heated in a furnace to a specified temperature, then quenched, or rapidly cooled down to harden it.
“Then we temper the material to the hardness range the customer is wanting,” James said. “It’s really important because otherwise, metal wouldn’t hold up to the processes it’s used for. It would be too soft.”
Two months ago, the James family added a deep cryogenics process that in addition to the regular heat-treating process cools metal to -300 degrees Fahrenheit. Cryogenics improves the metallurgical properties of the metal and results in greater wear and corrosion resistance that can’t be achieved with heat alone.
“We use hardness to improve hardness resistance,” James said. “It’s one of the newer things to use in heat treating because of the improved benefits you get. That process gives you the best properties of the steel that you can achieve.”
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In this weeks cliff hanger edition of “The Heat Treat Podcast” our eloquent host, Mr. Carlos Torres talks oxygen probes with Mr. Steve Thompson of controls company SSi of Cincinnati, Ohio. Stay tuned for some very interesting upcoming Podcasts in which we talk about salt heat treating and in another episode heat treating in the additive manufacturing industry.
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In Houston, Texas, USA forging company Dril-Quip has closed a facility and is sending the assets to an auction which will be held June 28th, 2022. Amongst the items available are a number of large high themperature ovens and carbottom furnaces which will attract little interest from most heat treaters. However what will interest quite a few heat treaters are the cast base trays which will be included in the auction. With alloy pricing at very elevated levels “The Monty Heat Treat News” is constantly receiving inquiries about surplus cast fixturing-is there any available? The answer of course is that seldom does any usable cast alloy on the market. In this particular case Dril-Quip has available over 200 cast base trays in various sizes, designs and conditions although at first glance most of it appears to be in reasonably good condition. It is a guarantee that every single base tray will be sold at auction.
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This photo is courtesy of “The Monty Heat Treat News” and was taken during a visit to the Champaign facility a few years ago.
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“The Industrial Heating Equipment Association (IHEA) recently announced its 2022-23 board of directors and executive officers. Serving as President is Jeff Valuck of Surface Combustion Inc., Vice-President is Brian Kelly of Honeywell Thermal Solutions, and Treasurer is Jeff Rafter of Selas Heat Technology Co. LLC. Scott Bishop of Alabama Power – a Southern Company assumes the Past President position.
IHEA President Jeff Valuck has been an active IHEA member for nearly a decade and has served as the Government Relations Committee chair for many of those years. When asked what goals he has for IHEA, Valuck said he plans to focus on “working on a strategic sustainability plan that puts IHEA in the forefront of emerging trends that are impacting our industry and gaining increasing interest from customers, governments, shareholders, and even employees.” Valuck continued, “I also look forward to increasing IHEA membership in all categories to give a greater fundamental 10,000-foot view of the industry.”
IHEA also welcomes a new face to the board of directors, Ben Gasbarre. Gasbarre is the Executive Vice-President of Sales & Marketing for Gasbarre Thermal Processing Systems. He has been involved in the sales, engineering and manufacturing of thermal processing equipment for nearly 15 years. He received his management and economics degree from Penn State University and his MBA from the University of Michigan. Gasbarre provides thermal processing equipment solutions for both atmosphere and vacuum furnace applications, as well as associated auxiliary equipment, and aftermarket parts and service. “Being a part of the associations that drive the industries we serve forward has always been a core value of Gasbarre and our leadership. I look forward to joining the IHEA Board of Directors and supporting the efforts that ultimately lead to improvements not only for member companies, but for the end users in our industries as well.”
To complete the board of directors for 2022-2023, the following members continue their service: Gary Berwick, Dry Coolers; Alberto Cantu, Nutec Bickley; Bob Fincken, Super Systems Inc.; Doug Glenn, Heat Treat Today; Francis Liebens, SOLO Swiss Group; John Podach, Fostoria Infrared; Jason Safarz, Karl Dungs Inc.; Michael Stowe, Advanced Energy; and John Stanley, Karl Dungs Inc. Learn about IHEA at www.ihea.org.”
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Since 1999 “The Monty” has been publishing annually a list of the largest commercial heat treaters in North America based upon annual sales, our 2021 list can be found at https://themonty.com/articles/50-largest-north-american-commercial-heat-treats-2021-2/ This year readers will see we became much more ambitious and expanded the list to the 50 largest. In our 5th spot we have Bluewater Thermal Solutions.
Bluewater Thermal Solutions operates 12 different heat treatment and brazing facilities in the United States and Canada and this makes us one of the largest heat treating and brazing companies in North America. Each location has different capabilities and equipment that allows them to offer specialized different types of processing required by their local markets. Bluewater provides thermal processing and metal joining to over 2,000 customers. In addition to specialty heat treatments and brazing, most of Bluewater’s locations offer traditional heat treatments such as annealing, hardening, carburizing, carbonitriding, vacuum heat treatments, nitriding, nitrocarburizing, normalizing, solution treat and age hardening, stress relieve, and many more.
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The recent dramatic increase in natural gas pricing has lead to several industry suppliers working to develop a more fuel efficient burner for gas fired furnaces. At least 3 suppliers that we know of have developed new products which are now either in testing or on the market, one of these is Ipsen as you can see in the press release below. Interestingly enough the testing is taking place at a company “The Monty Heat Treat News” is very familiar with, oil and gas industry supplier Centek. Read below the Centek press release and below that our summary of the heat treat department at the Centek, UK facility-Centek also has a very similar heat treatment facility in Oklahoma City, OK, USA.
“We are delighted to have been asked by Ipsen International GmbH to take part in the trial of a new burner unit. This is the first time this highly efficient burner has been installed anywhere in the world and is an excellent addition to our high performance heat treatment plant in the UK, providing advanced starting performance, a long usage lifetime and 11% energy saving. The Recon IV will be just one of 22 Recon burners used in our Newton Abbot, Devon facility. This is the home of one of the largest pusher furnaces in Europe – providing Centek with the high volume of products we need to meet demand, all with the consistent strength and flexibility required to perform downhole. We are proud to have been selected by Ipsen to test pilot this advanced technology. The Recon IV is installed and already working its magic.”
“APRIL 2021 NEWTON ABBOT, UK; Centek Group-In House Heat Treatment of Oil & Gas Components. This is how Centek Group, a manufacturer and captive heat treater describes themselves; “Founded in 2001, Centek Group specializes in the development of engineering solutions for casing running environments. Our focus has always been to reduce risk and rig time. We design and manufacture a range of revolutionary centralizers which provide unprecedented stand-off: giving optimum pipe centralization, aiding pipe rotation and easing the string to total depth without issue. https://www.centekgroup.com/”
To a layman such as myself this means the company designs, manufactures and supplies centralizers, a product used when drilling for oil or gas. This is done in two manufacturing locations, the first in Newton Abbot, Devon UK, the second in Oklahoma City, OK, USA. “The Monty Heat Treat News” team was able to get a half day tour of the location in the UK and this is what we can report.
This location has always been a firm believer in keeping the entire manufacturing process in house and this includes heat treatment. In approximately 2014 the decision was made to update the entire heat treatment department and the end result was an Ipsen 2 row gas fired “pusher” style furnace, using endothermic atmosphere provided by a single retort Ipsen generator.
In overall concept this would be considered a fairly typical “U” shaped pusher design with loading and unloading in the same area, high heat, oil quench, wash, temper and a feature we always like to see-an automated “tray flipper” to provide longer life to the cast base trays. The entire system is controlled by an up to date PLC system with datalogging, with atmosphere controlled by oxygen probes.
What is rather unusual though is the cleanliness of the entire operation, not a breath of smoke or a hint of quench oil to be found in the entire department. Originally this was a family run, employee owned company and while this is no longer the case the family “feeling” and pride lives on.
While this entire project is very much a family affair we have to mention that the fellow in charge of the heat treatment department, Mr. Phil Hayes is a lifelong heat treater who takes his job seriously and he perhaps more than anybody else is responsible for the fact that the department runs so smoothly. Vacuum & Atmosphere Services provides help as required.
While we have not personally seen the location in Oklahoma City, USA our understanding is that it is largely a mirror image of the UK facility although the furnace was provided by AFC-Holcroft, a US manufacturer. These photos will give you a very clear view of the entire facility. Our thanks go out to the entire Centek Group who were so incredibly hospitable during our visit.”
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Solar Atmospheres Heat Treating Operations. The Solar Nation heat treating plants includes Souderton PA, Hermitage PA, Fontana CA, and Greenville SC, and have in total 357,000 square feet of plant space. This does not include Solar Manufacturing division which produces vacuum furnaces. While the down turn in the commercial aircraft business due to Covid effected the company their military business along with their health care business remained strong and the company continues to be profitable. 2019 sales were $61.2 million USD, 2020 sales were $54.3 million and estimated 2021 sales are expected to be $55 million.
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This third generation commercial heat treater founded in 1967 Önerler Heat Treatment | Steel Sales | Turkey (onerler.net) recently announced that they have become the first and only commercial heat treater in the country to become NADCAP certified. The company achieved this certification very recently and joins another certification the firm has achieved in the last little while- AS9100 certification.
“The Monty Heat Treat News” had the opportunity to visit Önerler a few years back and we saw quite an impressive operation as you can see in the photo below.
Heat treaters around the world need to keep two dates in mind for 2022. The first is the Furnaces North America exhibition in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA and the second is the HK 22 in Cologne, Germany. FNA is the #1 show in North America for this year and will be the best North American heat treat exhibition in North America since the start of the Pandemic. The second show HK 22 is always the largest and best heat treat exhibition in Europe and this will be the first one since 2019. “The Monty Heat Treat News” enthusiastically endorses both events.
Furnaces North America (FNA), October 3-5th 2022, Indianapolis, IN, USA Home | fna20 (furnacesnorthamerica.com)
HK 22 October 11th-13th, 2022, Cologne, Germany HK AWT : Home (www-hk–si-de.translate.goog)
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