In Plainwell, Michigan, USA we find family owned commercial heat treater Darby Metal Treating, a company which has made “The Monty Heat Treat News” a couple of times over the years. They grace our pages again today because they just hired a new Sales Manager by the name of David Bates.

David is obviously an experienced fellow who spent over 10 years with commercial heat treating giant Bodycote. While at Bodycote he successfully closed the Melrose Park, IL location while retaining 60% of the customers to other company locations. He also oversaw the launch of the new Elgin facility from site selection to start of production, we would imagine he will do a very good job at Darby.

We would be remis if we didn’t mention our most recent news item about Darby, this is from February of 2021 when the firm installed a new gas nitrider;  “Rubig, a furnace manufacturer based in Wels, Austria is in the process of installing a “duo” gas nitrider which can also nitride stainless steels at a company in Michigan. Darby Metal Treating in Plainwell, Michigan is a family owned business and in this picture you see from the left Tom, Max, and Adrien Darby, Mike Fortuna, Ernst (Rubig service), and John Young who is the local Rubig representative. While Darby offers a number of heat treat processes they really concentrate on vacuum heat treating.”​

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John Hubbard, Chairman of the Board of “Thermal Process Holdings” announces the recent acquisition of “Rockford Heat Treaters” of Rockford, Illinois, USA. With this acquisition the firm now has 6 commercial heat treating facilities all located in the US Midwest. As is the case with all acquisitions made by “Thermal Process Holdings”, “Rockford Heat Treaters” will continue as an independent location continuing to build on their past successes. The two owner/operators of the firm, Tom and Ted Deutsch will be staying on in their current positions. This marks another step in “Thermal Process Holding’s” long stated goal of become one of the largest commercial heat treaters in the US through acquisitions.

About Thermal Process Holdings; Thermal Process Holdings has a very, strong, experienced management team headed by Mr. John Hubbard, P.E.  Chairman of the Board and Mr. Todd McDonald, President and CEO. More information about the company can be found at; Thermal Process Holdings | A Unique Partnership for the Future You Want

About Rockford Heat Treaters; Rockford Heat Treaters was founded in 1967 with the vision of providing fast, quality heat treating services. Over the last 50 years we have grown to a 50,000 sq. ft. facility offering an array of processes to meet your heat treating needs and on time demands. We have been a family owned business since 1999, with over 100 years of management heat treating experience. Our employees and customer base have been the backbone of our success. We have built many great business relationships over the years, and hope to continue expanding our relations with new business. Rockford Heat Treaters | Rockford, IL

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Furnace builder Ipsen of Kleve, Germany just shipped a brand new nitriding furnace to commercial heat treater Härdservice AB in Hallstahammar, Sweden. Originally founded in Kolbäck, Sweden the firm recently added a second, brand new location in Hallstahammar which is where these photos were taken. This Ipsen VDR furnace has working dimensions of 900 x 1200 x 900 mm and a load capacity of 2000 Kg. This is the first furnace to arrive in the new plant.

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Expanite – The technology of the Danish pioneer for surface hardening of stainless steel and titanium is used more and more frequently when it comes to alternatives to classic fluoroplastic coatings such as Teflon®, Halar® or Xylan®. In addition to technical and commercial advantages, the environmental compatibility and sustainability of the Expanite process are playing an increasingly important role for customers.

After the discovery of PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene) – also known as Teflon® – in 1938, some time passed before technically usable applications for the highly inert material paved their way. Today, coatings based on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs), known by their trade names such as Teflon®, Halar® or Xylan® or more generally referred to by the abbreviations ECTFE, PFA, FEP, ETFE, PVDF etc., are applied in many areas to optimize the sliding and non-stick properties as well as wear and corrosion resistance of components.

In addition to the well-known disadvantages of coatings, i.e. in homogeneous layer thicknesses, layer detachment and increased corrosion attack if the coating is damaged, PFAS-based products have another substantial deficit: the highly stable and therefore not completely degradable carbon-fluorine compounds are harmful not only for humans but also to the environment and can cause cancer, among other things.

Accordingly, there has been a trend towards avoiding the use of these materials since the early 2000s, and especially when it comes to improving wear and corrosion resistance, Expanite surface hardening offers a costeffective and sustainable alternative.

The Expanite technology is based on a gas process in which carbon and nitrogen are diffused in the component surface. The otherwise comparable soft and wear-prone stainless steel material hardens by a factor of up to 10 and while classic diffusion processes impacting corrosion resistance of the material, the Expanite processes generally improve the corrosion properties of the component.

Sustainable against wear and galling

Besides the elimination of carcinogenic substances, Expanite’s gas-based diffusion process is significantly more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly than comparable wear protection processes, and thanks to the treatment in a vacuum, no time consuming cleaning of the parts, e.g., with aggressive chemicals, is necessary after hardening.

“The different cases in which Expanite is used as an alternative to such plastic coatings are widely spread and can be found, for example, in the areas of pumps and valves, food & beverage or general industrial applications,” explains Dr. Holger Selg, application expert and Expanite Sales Director DACH, and continues: “First and foremost, we increase the wear and galling resistance of stainless steel components. By hardening the surface, the sliding properties are improved at the same time and, depending on the application, offer an adequate replacement for fluoroplastic coatings.”

The Expanite technology, specially developed for corrosion-resistant materials, offers a solution for austenitic, martensitic, ferritic, and duplex stainless steels as well as for expensive nickel-based alloys such as Inconel and Hastelloy. Moreover, ExpaniteHard-Ti, which the Expanite team of experts has developed to market maturity in recent years, is used for titanium grades.

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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 36th spot we have Thermal Vac, Orange, California.

Founded in 1985 by Steve Driscol and based in Orange, CA, Thermal-Vac Technology is southern California’s premier brazing, heat-treating, and finishing facility offering first-class services to a wide customer base, including some of the most demanding in the industry. For over three decades we have been sought out by customers who require the most innovative solutions for challenging project needs, effectively helping to secure a position as a leader in the industry. With an original facility of 5,500 square feet and 11 active customers, Thermal-Vas transformed into a multiple location company with over 60,000 square feet of campus footprint. We have 80 team members, with 50 in production. Thermal-Vac is a family-owned business with second generation family leaders heading the business since 2012. Our team is comprised of many family-oriented relationships with over 25% of our employees being related to each other in some way.

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Following a full five-day audit, ThermoFusion, Hayward, California, has been awarded GE Aviation approval for vacuum heat treating and hardness testing. ThermoFusion continues to make gains in the Aerospace Market with earning an initial NADCAP approval in 2019, Honeywell approval in 2020, and NADCAP 18-month merit status in 2021, all while expanding scope. ThermoFusion’s streak of approvals speaks to the strength and commitment of their entire team.

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Recently we announced that automotive transmission parts maker Bucyrus Precision Tech in Bucyrus, Ohio, USA was closed and that all the equipment including the very substantial in house heat treatment department would be going to auction-as an update to this story we can tell you that bidding closes the end of next week, February 17 to be exact. Our interest of course lies in the heat treat equipment which includes a total of 16 normalizing and carburizing furnaces, which means at one point in time that this was one of the larger captive heat treats in all of Ohio, and Ohio as we know includes a number of very large in captive heat treats. Will the furnaces attract much attention at auction-“The Monty Heat Treat News” doubts it, mainly for the design and the fact that the manufacturer of the equipment is not well known in North America in spite of the fact that they have hundreds of systems installed in North America-let us explain.

Dowa, who supplied the furnaces is a Japanese furnace builder (the largest in Japan we will add) and they make absolutely top notch equipment, but in spite of the fact that they have literally hundreds of installed furnaces in North America they remain relatively unknown to North Americans for the simple fact that they are largely found in Japanese auto parts supplier facilities. As an example the Honda facilities in the US almost exclusively use Dowa equipment but as the furnaces are single sourced to Dowa few outsiders are aware of them.

Dowa furnace design also generally differs from what North American furnaces builders supply in that in most cases they have a single row pusher design, quite unlike the standard for North Americans which is an “in/out” batch IQ design. So while the equipment is relatively new, an advanced design and appears to be in good shape we would not expect there to be a great deal of interest at auction.

Rather interesting that one of the larger install bases in North America for furnaces belongs to a company that most North American heat treaters are not familiar with.

On a final note we can say that Dowa is one of the largest commercial heat treaters in the world and the photo below shows one of their completely automated facilities in Japan as “The Monty Heat Treat News” saw it a few years ago.

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AVION Europa GmbH & Co. KG in Germany is a long time supplier to the heat treatment industry with locations/partnerships with companies throughout Europe, Turkey and the USA. Amongst the firms AVION partners with are SSi Europe and SBS Corp. According to this press release long time employee Sebastion Köchling (who is a real nice guy by the way) has been appointed as Managing Director of the company;

“Sebastian Köchling took over the position as Managing Director of AVION Europa GmbH & Co. KG at the beginning of the year. Previously, Sebastian Köchling worked as an authorized signatory and sales manager. He began his career in 2008 as a temporary employee in the warehouse and then from 2009 as an apprentice office clerk. He therefore knows the company, the processes and our customers very well. Together with Roland Caminades, Sebastian Köchling will now manage the fortunes of the company. We wish Mr. Köchling a happy hand in his new area of responsibility and congratulate him warmly!”

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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 37th spot we have Hi TechMetal Group (HTG).

Since 1943 Hi TechMetal Group (HTG) has been one of the largest commercial heat treaters in the Ohio, USA area. The firm has 4 locations in Ohio which offer Induction Hardening, Brazing, Vacuum Hardening and Brazing amongst other processes. President is Mr. Cole Coe, son in law of the founder Mr. Terry Profugi.

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