It was just announced that Birmingham Fastener in Birmingham, Alabama, USA had acquired K-T Bolt in Katy, Texas an announcement which caught our attention at “The Monty Heat Treat News”. Regular readers will know it caught our attention because of the fact that heat treatment of fasteners represents a significant percentage of the total heat treating market worldwide. In this case K-T Bolt has long maintained an in house heat treat department which includes Surface Combustion “Super 30” Batch IQ equipment.
“Manufacturer/Distributor Birmingham Fastener Acquires K-T Bolt in Texas; Katy, TX-based K-T Bolt Manufacturing provides custom fabrication, closed-die forging, in-house heat treating and electropolishing.
BIRMINGHAM, AL — Birmingham Fastener announced March 9 the acquisition of K-T Bolt Manufacturing, Inc. based in Katy, TX.
“With over 100 years of combined fastener production, this acquisition strengthens Birmingham Fastener’s product offering and manufacturing diversity,” the company said. “Most importantly, it allows us to add teammates to our world-class staff and will yield long-term benefits for our customers. In doing this, the level of service we can offer to our customers will be increased.”
K-T Bolt Manufacturing provides custom fabrication, closed-die forging, in-house heat treating and electropolishing. With this partnership, Birmingham Fastener and its sister companies can expand product and service offerings to their customers. Randy Peck will stay on as President of K-T Bolt and join the leadership team at Birmingham fastener, offering his expertise in the field.
“The future of our company is now and always will be about growth and productive changes. At the same time, we must hold fast to our core values like world-class service, accountability, and a commitment to excellence that we’ve had since my father founded this company in 1980” says Brad Tinney, President and CEO of Birmingham Fastener. “This partnership allows us to further expand our footprint and strengthen our commitment to American fastener manufacturing.”
Founded in 1980, Birmingham Fastener is a domestic manufacturer and distributor of fasteners for structural steel fabrication, metal building manufacturers, water works, OEM, and MRO. The Birmingham Fastener family of companies consists of multiple locations across the nation to service our valued customer.”
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In Nuevo Laredo, Mexico we find Linamar Driveline Systems a division of Canadian auto parts maker Linamar, one of the largest captive heat treaters in North America as rated by “The Monty Heat Treat News” https://themonty.com/project/a
by Tier One supplier Visteon before it was bought by Linamar a number of years back. Interestingly enough this location had one of the largest vacuum carburizing installations in North America at one point in time which included two large ECM systems purchased in 2010.
The company is gracing our pages today because they have just invested in some more new heat treating furnaces. This photo shows the first furnace, a batch IQ furnace with working dimensions of 36″ X 48″ X 36″, with top cool option and ancillary equipment which was provided by AFC-Holcroft.
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Earlier this week, March 7 to be exact we had a story about Aichelin, one of the world’s largest furnace builders investing in a brand new manufacturing facility close to their Slovenian division “Bosio”. This story can be found at Furnace Builder “Aichelin” Makes Major Investment in New Location-Plans to Shift Some Production | The Monty
To go with this story we have these photos showing the cornerstone of the new building being laid by the principals of both Bosio and Aichelin. In the first photo you see Zdravko Počivalšek, Minister of Economic Development and Technology Slovenia, Bojan Šrot, Mayor of Celje, Hugo Bosio, founder of Bosio Furnace, Mr. Peter Schobesberger, CEO of Aichelin.
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Texas Heat Treating offers a wide range of heat treatments, testing and support services, operating 24 hours a day and seven days a week. CEO C.H. “Buddy” Crossley started Texas Heat Treating in 1977 as a small company in a 6,000 square foot shop. Today, the company has expanded to two large facilities, the first in Round Rock, Texas, and the newest plant in Fort Worth, Texas. We serve customers in the southwestern region of the United States and Mexico. With over 40 years of experience, we’re committed to professionalism, quality and on-time deliveries. We continually invest in modern equipment to ensure we can provide our customers with the highest-quality service. For more information about Texas Heat Treating, visit our website.
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For a variety of reasons including the war in the Ukraine the price of nickel futures escalated so much today that the London Metal Exchange we forced to suspend trading in nickel contracts, only the second time in history that this has occurred;
“LONDON, March 8 (Reuters) – The London Metal Exchange (LME) has been forced to suspend all trading in its nickel contract after prices went into chaotic overdrive. LME three-month nickel , the primary pricing reference for the global physical supply chain, hit $101,365 a tonne early on Tuesday, up from just $30,000 on Friday. The contract was suspended at $80,000 as the exchange stepped in to halt trading at 0815 GMT. All Tuesday’s trades up until then will be cancelled until further notice, the LME said.”
We and everybody else in the heat treat industry should be extremely concerned because of how this will affect the price of every single alloy component used in furnaces, fixtures, base trays, radiant tubes, mesh belts-all with feel the pain and it will be felt quickly. Just today a large commercial heat treater in the US told us that when they asked their long time basket supplier for a quote they were told that because of the volatility in pricing that they were unable to quote at the present time.
These graphs really demonstrate how quickly things have changed.
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We have long considered John Hubbard to be one of the most successful commercial heat treaters of all time-his accomplishments in the industry are legendary (to learn more about John we would suggest his “Heat Treat Podcast” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H76BJtd6QsM). According to this press release John has decided that now is the time for him to retire from the Board of Directors of “Thermal Process Holdings”, the 11th largest commercial heat treater in North America as ranked by “The Monty Heat Treat News” https://themonty.com/project/5
“March 7, 2022; Thermal Process Holdings (“TPH”) has announced that John Hubbard P.E. has retired from its Board of Directors. Mr. Hubbard said: “Following the acquisition of Rockford Heat Treat, it is a good time for me to step away from the business. I’m proud of the platform we have established, including the acquisition of five companies, and wish the team continued success.”
Todd McDonald, CEO of TPH, commented: “It has been a real pleasure to work with John over the past several years. His experience and knowledge of heat treating is second to none, and I have benefited tremendously from working with him.”
ABOUT THERMAL PROCESS HOLDINGS; Thermal Process Holdings, Inc. owns and operates six heat treat locations: Rockford Heat Treat and Diamond Heat Treat (Rockford, IL); Certified Heat Treating (Springfield, OH); Hudapack (Elkhorn and Franklin, WI); and P&L (Youngstown, OH). The company’s stated goal is to build a diversified, professionally managed thermal processing business generating over $100 million of revenue by providing differentiated value-added services. Central to this strategy is identifying and bringing together businesses that share a focus on safety, quality, service, and advanced technology.
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North Americans are absolutely right to complain about the rapid run up in natural gas pricing in such a short period of time, however compared to Europeans we have absolutely no reason to complain. Our good friend Alan Hick, is CHTA Secretary/Editor of Hotline, the largest heat treat publication in the UK (CHTA stands for Contract Heat Treatment Association, an organization of commercial heat treaters in the country-their counterpart in North American would be MTI).
In the March 2022 issue of “Hotline” 299410 Hotline Newsletter No167.indd (chta.co.uk) Alan speaks about energy pricing and CHTA’s efforts to influence costs and point out to everybody who will listen how crucial heat treating is to manufacturing (and much to his credit he references “The Monty Heat Treat News”). His article makes for very interesting reading and we would suggest reading it however this graph in a nutshell sums up the differences in the cost of natural gas in Europe as opposed to North America and shocking is the only way to describe it. This graph (which is in USD) shows the relative costs from 2014 to late 2021 and as you can see while there have been fluctuations the two lines show similar ups and downs (American costs are in blue, European costs in black). However starting in early 2021 European cost increased wildly and we would imagine that given the current political situation the spread is becoming even more pronounced.
Can you imagine European heat treaters paying 6 times North American prices? Amazing.
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You would not expect to find one of the largest commercial heat treaters in North America in Northern Michigan, however such is the case with Century Sun Metal Treating which for over 30 years have been offering heat treating services in Traverse City, Michigan. Century Sun (which is part of a larger group) has a great deal of vacuum and plasma nitriding capacity which they use to service a wide variety of industries.
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Moedling, Austria based furnace builder “Aichelin” ranks as one of the largest furnace builders in the world with manufacturing locations on several continents AICHELIN Holding The company’s thermal treatment offerings are wide and varied and largely focused on atmosphere heat treating although through various divisions they are able to offer Induction Hardening equipment, commercial heat treating and burners as an example.
The focus of this news item today is their industrial furnace manufacturing division in Slovenia, “Bosio Furnace Solutions”, a company in which Aichelin acquired a majority ownership stake back in 2012. According to this news story which appeared in a Slovenia business publication by the name of “ STAkrog”, “Aichelin Holding” just started construction of a brand new 7 million EURO building located quite close to the firm’s existing facilities in Bukovžlak, Slovenia. The press release goes on to say that this investment marks the beginning of several and that some production will be shifted from Austria to Slovenia in the future. STAkrog: Celje Bosio in the construction of a new industrial building
We have two photos to go with this news item, one shows a typical Bosio furnace, the other shows the Aichelin manufacturing facility as “The Monty Heat Treat News” saw it pre pandemic. We will keep you updated on this story.
“3 March – Celje company Bosio, which develops and manufactures industrial furnaces, will start building a new industrial building in Bukovžkuk near Celje. The cornerstone of the investment of around €7 million was laid today in the presence of Economy Minister Zdravk Počivalška.
As the director of Bosio, Hugo Bosia, the ceo of majority Bosio owner Aichelin Holding, Peter Schobesberger and Celje Mayor Boen Šrota, said, Bosio, which employs 115 workers, has made a significant investment in the expansion of production. So far, the company has carried out more than 3000 projects for subscribers on three continents.
Bosio said that the new, 2,000-square meter industrial facility, which will grow in close proximity to the company’s existing business and manufacturing premises in Bukovžlak, will be designed to assemble thermal materials treatment equipment under the Bosio and Aichelin brands. As production capacity expands, the company is forecasting 30 new jobs. Completion of construction is scheduled for 1 September this year.
The main investor is the Austrian Group of Aichelin, the umbrella company of Bosio, which invests with the aim of moving and expanding capacity from Austria to Slovenia, said Bosio.
Due to the increased number of orders obtained in the company last year and this year, according to him, after consulting with the Aichelin Group, they have already started to produce project documentation for the second and third phases, which would have acquired an additional 4000 square meters of commercial and production premises, while opening 40 new jobs. The completion of the two phases is foreseen by August 2023 and Slovenia would acquire a ‘distinguished international centre for the production and assembly of industrial lines’ through this enlargement.
Bosio was founded in 1988 when owner Hugo Bosio began producing small laboratory and melting furnaces for heat treatment. In 2012, the family business had become part of the international Aichelin Group, which owns 75 per cent of its own.”
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Regular readers will recall that in late 2021 Halliburton, one of the world’s largest providers of products and services for the oil and gas industry auctioned off some of their equipment at their facility in Conroe, Texas, USA. Included in the offerings were three 36″ X 48″ X 36″ batch IQ furnaces provided by AFC-Holcroft and all ancillary equipment including tempers, washer, charge car and endo generator. The equipment ended up being bought by a US used equipment dealer for less money than we would have expected considering it was in half decent shape and relatively new.
We have just learned that the entire package was purchased by a commercial heat treater in the US Midwest. We are not privy to the customers long term plans, but we will say that if they intend to install all 3 in the near future this is adding a lot of capacity when you consider this size of furnace is capable of 3500 pound loads.
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