In ” people news” we see that Aalberts Surface Technologies very recently hired a fellow by the name of Pat Wallis to be VP Sales & Marketing Aalberts Surface Technologies Specialized Heat Treatment US. We assume (but don’t know for sure) that Pat will be working with all of the Aalberts divisions in the US which is becoming quite a long list and includes.
- the 3 former “Applied Process” facilities in Livonia, MI, Oshkosh, WI and Fort Smith, AR
- Accurate Brazing with locations in Goffstown, NH and Greenville, SC and Ionic Technologies also in Greenville, SC
- 9 locations in Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana and Ohio which were formerly known as Premier Thermal
In total the company has 17 locations throughout the USA. We wish Pat the best of luck in his new position. See where “The Monty Heat Treat News” ranked Aalberts USA as compared to other US commercial heat treaters https://themonty.com/articles/50-largest-north-american-commercial-heat-treats-2021-2/
Did you like this article? Click here to subscribe to The Monty.
View our recent magazines and podcasts by clicking the following link. https://themonty.com/magazine/
“AUGUST 18th, 2018; Applied Process, Fort Smith, Arkansas, USA; We promised you updates about the new Applied Process commercial heat treating facility in Fort Smith, Arkansas, USA and this is the first installment. This will be one of the largest new heat treating facility investments in North America in 2018. “Livonia, Mich.-based Applied Process opened its doors to the public to celebrate the beginning of operations in Fort Smith. The company purchased and renovated an abandoned building at 5400 North 6th Street for $2.751 million starting in January. The overall expansion has been between $8 million and $10 million, counting the addition of industrial equipment.
The location was once a spice warehouse for OK Foods. For Tim Allen, president and CEO of the Fort Smith Regional Chamber of Commerce, the process started “about a year ago.” According to the company’s recruiting brochure, the average entry-level production wage is $31,500 and the company pays up to 95% of health insurance premiums. After adding in another $3,600 in average entry-level bonus and profit sharing, the total compensation comes out to about $49,600, or roughly $23.85 per hour for new hires with no experience. Plant manager Rusty Rainbolt told Talk Business & Politics the facility had 20 employees when it officially opened last month, that it hopes to add “another 5-6 soon, and over the next five years, we’re going to grow that number up to about 50.” “We started as a half-size facility with three furnaces, and we’ll grow out to six,” he added. The current plant size is about 51,000 square feet. Applied Process specializes in austempering heat treatment processing. It has “a diverse industry base,” Rainbolt explained. “We work in everything from automotive to aerospace to mining and construction and agriculture. Big customers of ours would be Ford Motor Company, Fiat Chrysler, John Deere, Caterpillar, all the way to railroad companies.”
Did you like this article? Click here to subscribe to The Monty.
View our recent magazines and podcasts by clicking the following link. https://themonty.com/magazine/
KGO has recently commissioned its first Horizontal Nitriding Furnace in India at Harsha Engineers International Ltd. “With this installation, the
customer has gained more load capacity, lesser cycle time and more accurate Monitoring & Control on Power and Process gases.” Pictured here with the furnace are Mr. Chandrasekaran Subramanian, head of heat treat division of Harsha Engineers Ltd. and Mr. Subhash Kanse, the KGO representative in India.
About Harsha Engineers International Ltd. Since its inception in 1986, Harsha Engineers International Limited* (Harsha) has become the largest manufacturer of precision bearing cages in India in terms of capacity and operations. The company now ranks amongst the leading manufacturers of precision bearing cages in the world with a market share of approximately 5% to 6% in the global brass, steel and polyamide industries in terms of revenue. http://www.harshaengineers.com
Did you like this article? Click here to subscribe to The Monty.
View our recent magazines and podcasts by clicking the following link. https://themonty.com/magazine/
“Solar Manufacturing Inc. announces the receipt of a vacuum heat treating furnace order for a firearms manufacturer based in the United States. The furnace, Model HFL-5748-2IQ, has a hot zone of 36” x 36” x 48” deep with a weight capacity of 5,000 lbs., and maximum operating temperature of 2400°F, and heats to 2500°F for hot zone bake out. The furnace design also has a temperature uniformity of ±10°F and is AMS2750 compliant with vacuum levels in the low micron range.
For rapid turnaround for work cooling, a 100 HP gas blower is provided for operating at 15 PSIG (2–bar) in nitrogen gas. The furnace is complete with a SolarVac® Polaris fully automated and programmable industrial controls package, and a Eurotherm digital chart recorder.
The system also includes a Magnetic Specialties, Inc. (magspecinc.com) SCR–based dry power supply rated at 225 kVa.
Solar Manufacturing designs and manufactures a wide variety of vacuum heat treating, sintering, and brazing furnaces and offers replacement hot zones, spare parts, and professional service. To learn more about Solar Manufacturing contact Pete Reh, VP of Sales, at 267-384-5040 x1509, or via email [email protected] or visit us at solarmfg.com.”
Did you like this article? Click here to subscribe to The Monty.
View our recent magazines and podcasts by clicking the following link. https://themonty.com/magazine/
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 16th spot we have FPM Heat Treating.
For over 40+ years FPM Heat Treating has been providing unsurpassed service and quality heat treating to the nation’s manufacturing community. We have assembled a leading team of heat treating practitioners and metallurgists who understand how to control the many process variables to satisfy and meet the challenging OEM and Military/Aerospace specifications. Some of our capabilities include Batch and Continuous processing of Through Hardening, Carburizing, Carbonitriding, FNC, Nitriding, Salt Bath and our Vacuum processing of Age Hardening, Annealing, Bright Hardening, and our patented Nitrotec Process. We are ISO 9001-2015 Certified at all locations and maintain Nadcap accreditation in our Elk Grove facility. Along with our Nadcap approval we have many accreditations and approvals such as CQI-9 certified, Sikorsky, Pratt & Whitney, GE Aviation, and Honeywell just to name a few. We proudly are heavily involved in the Metal Treating Institute and local Mid-West trade associations
Did you like this article? Click here to subscribe to The Monty.
View our recent magazines and podcasts by clicking the following link. https://themonty.com/magazine/
High energy costs are a challenge to all heat treaters around the world, and particularly challenging to heat treaters in Europe. So what is the solution? We look to captive/commercial heat treat Ramada in Ovar, Portugal for a solution, a solution they outline in this note below. To cut a long story short the company is absorbing 80% of the cost increases themselves and passing on only 20%. “The Monty Heat Treat News” chose to look at Ramada as we are very familiar with the firm having visited just a few months ago. In addition Ramada is a reasonably large facility with a mix of atmosphere and vacuum furnaces which makes them fairly representative of heat treaters in Europe. Further down we have a summary of the company as we saw it just a few months ago.
“We are aware that the whole industry is suffering from this energy crisis, in particular industries in which the use of electricity, gases and fuels, represent a significant percentage of the cost of products or services provided, as is the case with the Thermal Treatment Industry. To cope with these increases, an “extra energy” fee was introduced on 26 April 2022 (for orders placed after that date) which is directly proportional to the price of the daily OMIE energy market https://www.omie.es/es (calculated with the current costs of gases, fuels and other consumables). The calculation is based on average consumption of electricity, gases and current fuels, by type of heat treatment.
Ramada Aços, at least in this initial period, will continue to bear the highest percentage of extra costs (80%) passing on to our customers at this time only 20% of all extra costs. However, given the current unpredictability of the costs of electricity, gases and fuels, we might have to review the percentage of cost distribution of the applied rate in the future. The evaluation of this “extra energy” fee will be carried out on the first business day of each month. The updated information will be available for consultation on our website https://www.ramada.pt/pt/extra
In order to facilitate the identification of the “extra energy” value, it will appear on the invoice, duly highlighted. We will as a company continue to work according to good practices, with the knowledge, experience and requirement of strict compliance with stages, temperatures, pressures, speeds and gas use, in order to continue to obtain the best performance of tools, molds and parts, subject to heat treatment. It is our intention that the application of this “extra energy” is temporary and we strongly hope that the current situation will fade away and that everything will quickly return to normal. This extra energy charge will be withdrawn when energy costs are less than €80/MWh.”
“NOVEMBER 26, 2021, OVAR, PORTUGAL; We have now concluded Part I & II of our series about heat treatment in Portugal, we now move on to Part III which features a company by the name of Ramada ACOS a captive/commercial heat treater located in the northern part of Portugal in the city of Ovar. The firm is another example of a company which offers some of the most “state of the art” heat treatment processes available anywhere in the world. Ramada has been in business for more than 75 years both as a heat treater and a distributor of steel for Uddeholm. The company has 13 vacuum hardening and vacuum nitriding furnaces all from French furnace builder BMI along with 8 sealed quench furnaces with oil quenching https://www.ramada.pt/pt/servi
The vacuum furnaces include a hardening furnace with dimensions of 1200 mm X 1200 mm X 1800 mm (48″ x 48″ x 72″) with 13 bar nitrogen quenching, a vacuum carburizing system, several tempering units and some nitriding systems. Every single one as mentioned previously was provided by BMI in Lyon, France and in many cases Ramada has been the testing ground for new processes being developed by BMI.
The firm reports business to be very good this year although with the usual trials and tribulations caused by current supply chain issues. In spite of these trials the entire company is posed to grow and expand in 2022.”
Did you like this article? Click here to subscribe to The Monty.
View our recent magazines and podcasts by clicking the following link. https://themonty.com/magazine/
Gord Montgomery, (The Monty Heat Treat News), Paulo Canhola, (Ramada)
Because they just read the May 2022 issue of “The Monty Heat Treat News” and now they know all of the most recent news in the global heat treatment industry. Want to be as happy as Vac Aero https://fliphtml5.com/gvbzt/cahx.
“APRIL 21, 2022; Vacuum Furnace Builder Vac Aero Appoints Sales Manager; Furnace Manufacturer Vac Aero has recently appointed Mr. Patrick Arcichowski as Sales Manager. Patrick will be taking over from Bill Potts who will be retiring as of April 30th 2022 after almost exactly 40 years with the company. Patrick brings with him many years experience in the steel fabrication industry.
Vac Aero based in Oakville, Ontario, Canada has a long and impressive history in the heat treat industry. The vacuum furnace manufacturing
division in Burlington, Ontario, Canada has been building horizontal and vertical vacuum furnaces since 1959. In addition the company has a specialty coating division based in Boucherville, Quebec.
The company also has a large thermal processing division located in Oakville, Ontario which is one of the largest subcontract aerospace heat treaters in North America. The thermal processing division is ranked by “The Monty Heat Treat News” as one of the largest in North America https://themonty.com/project/5
“The Monty Heat Treat News” visited Vac Aero recently and came away with this photo of Patrick along with some of the other members of the Vac Aero Team. From the left; Bill Potts, Current Sales Manager, Patrick Arcichowski, Future Sales Manager, Gary Younger, General Manager, Scot Rush, CEO and Paul Reginato, VP Finance.
Did you like this article? Click here to subscribe to The Monty.
View our recent magazines and podcasts by clicking the following link. https://themonty.com/magazine/
Today we are speaking with Mr. Jack Cahn, owner and Founder of Deep Cryogenic International, a fascinating heat treatment process pioneered by Jack himself. “Jack, I will be very upfront and say I know little about cryogenics, as a matter of fact it has always seemed to me to be a contradiction in terms that a sub zero process can even be considered a heat treat process. So for the sake of my education and perhaps some others in the industry could you please give us a brief summary about the cryogenic process?”
“Sure. Deep cryogenic treatment (DCT) is a -300°F (—190ºC) cold treatment that increases wear resistance and yield strength in most steel alloys from 20-70%. DCT also increases the conductivity of copper, lowers corrosion rates and significantly shrinks the heat affected zone of welds and additive manufactured items. The process is permanent, takes 2 days to complete, doesn’t change dimensional size and costs under $1.00 per pound to treat an item. The process is non-toxic, uses no chemicals and generates no environmental waste. DCT usually follows heat treatment and requires 1-2 tempering steps to eliminate hydrogen embrittlement and restore ductility. Think of it as the completing the circle of thermal treatment – going from high to low temp and then back to ambient to optimize wear and durability.”
The next logical question would be, how prevalent is cryogenics amongst captive and commercial heat treaters? Is this a well-known process?
“There are about 200 heat treaters in North America that have cryogenic chambers though most perform cold treatment and shallow cryogenics (-70°F to -240°F) to reduce retained austenite after martensitic transformation. DCT is generally accepted by heat treaters to reduce retained austenite in tool steels but it has not yet become a ‘go to’ process to address mechanical wear. It is inexpensive to provide DCT and easy to load as no fixturing is required. You can often batch load different geometries and alloys in the same run. Deep cryogenics is one of the highest profit thermal processes available to a heat treat operation.”
Then why isn’t the process more common than it is?
“Generally, it’s lack of industry awareness. Until recently, no industrial-size DCT equipment, ASTM-recognized test methods or any 3rd party qualification have been available. Both heat treating and deep cryogenics are thermal treatments but while heat treating is 10,000 years old, liquid nitrogen production and DCT have been around for only 100 years. This lack of familiarity has been a challenge and heat treaters, like most of us, generally are more comfortable with what we already know. Now that industrial customers are seeing clear evidence that DCT improves both wear item life and bottom line profit, I expect heat treaters to take another look at deep cryogenics.”
“I first discovered cryogenics in the late 1990’s when operating a 35 person, precision machine shop in the US – doing work for Jet Propulsion Lab and Lockheed. We were machining mostly nickel, kovar and titanium that burned through tooling. I wanted to reduce the high cost and wear on small endmills and drills. A friend introduced me to cryogenics and I found the process almost doubled my tooling life. More CNC spindle uptime, less labor spent changing tools, more production output. As an end user, it was a no brainer and I used DCT extensively. Later, I considered how it could improve the wear life of the items I machined for my customers. So I went into business with my wife Linda and we spent years writing research papers, developing treatment recipes and understanding the science. But no one ran a test lab, promoted the technology or conceived of scaling-up DCT equipment to reach industrial customers. So we acquired test equipment, began building large DCT chambers and opened our business in Nova Scotia in 2018. We will open a demonstration center in Alberta in June.”
You offer both the equipment, research and if I understand correctly you can provide cryogenic treatments. What is the focus of most of your attention? I will rephrase that and ask which of these services takes up most of your time?
“We do provide DCT but most of our effort is focused on building and leasing large DCT equipment and providing R&D testing for future and present customers. Besides leasing our smaller vacuum-insulated round chambers, we build the largest DCT equipment in the world. At 8’ x 8’ x 20’ with a 45,000 treatment capacity, it is the DCT equivalent of a car-bottom furnace and is the only industrial size equipment available on the market. We support all our customer leases by providing R&D, process optimization and testing – included with the lease. Although we perform metallurgical testing and microscopy, our R&D lab is primarily for applied research. We have XRD, white light interferometry and one of the only ASTM G81 gouging abrasion testers in existence in North America. We keep pretty busy.”
“DCT equipment life is entirely different because high heat erosion never impacts or affects cryogenic equipment. Our small chambers take 2 hours to install before they can operate and they can last 20+ years – operating at near-new efficiencies during the equipment life. All our machines temper as well as DCT – cycling from -300°F to 300°F to complete the process without requiring a separate tempering furnace. Although we will sell DCT equipment, in order to promote this technology we are prepared to share the expense of technology adoption with our customers by offering a leasing option.”
“We have also developed a complete industrial-size platform for lease to heat treaters that want to produce liquid nitrogen on-site from the air that we breath and use it for DCT as well as for other heat treat operations. This is a breakthrough innovation because now heat treaters don’t have to wait on high cost deliveries of bulk LN2 from gas suppliers – they can produce it on site from 240 -1,000 litres per day. Our platform includes our 36K DCT chamber, a liquid nitrogen generator, scroll air compressor, chiller and all the peripherals. We will demo this platform at our Alberta facility and provide customers full onsite installation, training and post-leasing support.”
“Historically, cryogenics has been a quirky but small market process used primarily in motor sports, firearms and machine shops. But the market is really in mining, power generation, transportation and road construction – places where abrasive wear creates high cost, lots of downtime and limits productivity. We are seeing lots of pushback against DCT from OEM’s of cast, forged and machined wear items due to DCT’s impact on their consumable sales – that’s how we know that we struck a nerve. Heat treaters respond directly to the market. It won’t be long before end users of high wear items seek out heat treaters for DCT of large parts or economy-of scale capacity to support their needs. Heat treaters will see DCT demand coming from end users, not just from manufacturers.”
When you approach a potential customer with your technology what is a typical response? A blank stare saying what are you talking about? An enthusiastic question about why haven’t you approached me before? Another way to phrase this question would be to ask how much does the typical heat treater know about cryogenics?
“Most have heard of the technology but usually not a lot more. New technologies require awareness, understanding and often field demonstrations – usually prior to adoption. These discussions take time and a collaborative effort. That’s why we decided to open our demo center. We bridge the knowledge gap by performing DCT, conducting lab or field testing and helping a customer ‘kick the tires’ by seeing the improvement with their own eyes.”
This interview would not be complete without talking about where you are located. You told me how you are located in the wilds of Alberta, Canada where wildlife is more prevalent than people-I leave it up to you to take it from there.
“Linda and I live in a log cabin in Twin Butte – surrounded by moose, Saskatoon berries and mountains that seem to rise out of the prairie. It is a very conscious and present choice. The ranch nearby runs cattle that provide an endless source of barking for our golden retriever. We have some very good friends there and beneath all those friendships is an awareness of where and how we all chose to live. Although it is only 15 minutes to our facility in Pincher Creek, it feels like another world.”
You are obviously very passionate and knowledgeable about your products, I wish you the very best of luck in the future. I have already made myself a note to touch base with you in the next few months to see how your projects are going, I and many others look forward to hearing about how the industry embraces your ideas.
“Cherry Valley, ILLINOIS (May 2, 2022) – Following a record year for new equipment orders in 2021, Ipsen’s Vacuum Technology Excellence Center continued that trend by booking 22 new vacuum furnace orders during the first quarter of 2022.
“We continue to see improved business levels in all target markets, driven by the need for additional production capacity along with customer requests for more unique thermal process capabilities.” said Ipsen USA President and CEO Patrick McKenna.
Vacuum furnace orders spanned several industries including automotive, additive manufacturing, aerospace, commercial heat treating, and tool & die. Ipsen also saw a wide variety in furnace models, from large vertical bottom loading units for aerospace to small vacuum debind and sinter furnaces for additive manufacturing. Other orders included those for Ipsen’s technologically advanced AvaC low-pressure carburizing capability, as well as high pressure gas quenching used in conjunction with vacuum compression brazing.
Ipsen also rounded out the first quarter with record parts bookings and is on track for a record year in aftermarket services as well. In Q1 2022, Ipsen performed over 250 field service visits related to installation and start-up, furnace relocation, hot zone replacement, preventive maintenance, calibrations and leak checks.
“Our aftermarket business is strong and only getting stronger,” said Ipsen’s Chief Service Officer John Dykstra. “We continue to add resources to the team and complete strategic initiatives designed to improve response times and reduce downtime for our customers.”
In addition to the growing demand for new equipment and aftermarket support, Ipsen continues to focus on expanding customer service offerings and increasing hiring efforts. In the first quarter, Ipsen USA hired 12 new employees.”
Did you like this article? Click here to subscribe to The Monty.
View our recent magazines and podcasts by clicking the following link. https://themonty.com/magazine/
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 17th spot we have ThermTech Inc.
ThermTech in Waukesha, Wisconsin is a privately held commercial heat-treating company that offers a wide range of services to a diverse and discerning set of customers. It was founded in 1982 by Charles Wiberg and remains a family owned business. We are proud to offer exceptional, value-added services to manufacturers in the Forging, Foundry, Heavy Equipment, Machining, Oil & Gas and Tool & Die markets. ThermTech is currently ISO 9001:2000 certified.
Did you like this article? Click here to subscribe to The Monty.
View our recent magazines and podcasts by clicking the following link. https://themonty.com/magazine/
