Carlos Torres, President of furnace builder MATTSA, the largest furnace builder in Mexico, Jim Oakes, President of furnace controls company SSi of Cincinnati, Ohio, Pete Callert of Heat-Tek, Inc., of Michigan-a firm selling heat treatment services for companies such as Crio-we have assembled this “dream team” of industry experts to discuss some of the major issues of the day. Each of these individuals have spent most of their working lives in the global heat treatment industry and each brings their own specific knowledge of the industry to the table.

Recently we gathered Carlos, Jim and Pete together and in an hour long discussion moderated by Gord Montgomery of “The Monty” we covered several topics not generally addressed. Our format consisted of a total of 9 questions covering 3 major topics followed up by a discussion about how the heat treatment industry will look Post COVID. Our Topics included; “The Heat Treatment Market in Mexico and its Relationship to the US”, “Manufacturing and Heat Treating for the US and how it Compares to Other Parts of the World”, and “How to Compete Against China?”

Today we present to you the final product-each of the individuals involved looks forward to your comments and feedback.

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 “Lucifer Furnaces completed a yearlong contract to deliver 18 AMS 2750-compliant furnaces and ovens to the United States Air Force. Models supplied include heavy-duty single-chamber furnaces, dual-chamber furnace/oven combinations, recirculating convection ovens and dual ovens. All models are designed and built to comply with AMS 2750 Class 2 (+/-10°F) and Class 5 (+/-25°F) specifications with instrumentation package D, which includes digital paperless recorder/controllers, high-limit safety systems and SCR power supplies. TUS and SAT access ports are built in for ongoing system accuracy tests and temperature uniformity survey compliance. All models are completely wired and temperature uniformity surveyed in-house prior to shipment.”

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January 25th of this year we released our biennial list of the 30 Most Influential People in The North American Heat Treating Industry in 2021-this can be found at 30 Most Influential People in The North American Heat Treating Industry 2021 | The Monty While we have received a tremendous response so far with views in the thousands we did have some detractors who all pointed to the same issue-we missed some really good people. This comment from a captive heat treater sums it up as well as anybody; “Gord this is a big industry with a lot of good people in it-you limited it to 30? You could have done better”. Well this reader was correct so we went back to our suggestions and votes and we now offer these 10 additions, each of whom did receive votes and praise. The moral of the story is that January, 2022 when we update our list again it will be the  “40 Most Influential People in The North American Heat Treating Industry in 2022”

Roger Jones has a passion for heat treating that is in his blood. He is the second generation of the Solar Family of companies with his two sons creating the third generation of the largest privately owned commercial vacuum heat treater in North America. Roger has been an integral part of building the various facilities, serving in many roles including CEO of Solar Atmospheres. Roger uses his over 45 years of knowledge in the industry by serving in various roles, including terms as president in both the ASM International Heat Treating Society and Metal Treating Institute (MTI). He has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors including the George H. Bodeen Heat Treating Achievement Award and was elected to the Class of Fellows for ASM International. Roger has used his knowledge of Heat Treating to help educate others by writing and publishing several technical papers on Heat Treating and Materials Process as well as traveling to and teaching at conferences and local ASM chapters all over the country.

Bob Fincken, Vice President Sales at Super Systems Inc. A number of people voted for Bob as one of “Most Influential in the North American Heat Treating Industry” and we at “The Monty” couldn’t agree more. Based in Ohio, Bob’s knowledge of furnace controls systems rivals anybody else in the industry. Over the years he has worked with 3 of the largest controls companies in North America and for the past 14 he has been with SSi, the past couple as Vice President of Sales. In addition to his experience in control systems he does an extremely impressive job of motivating his sales reps.

Jeff McLaughlin, CEO & Founder of McLaughlin Furnace Group. McLaughlin Furnace Group was founded in Avilla, Indiana, USA in 2007 by Mr. Jeff McLaughlin as company offering new furnaces.  In 2017, McLaughlin purchased Vesco a vacuum service company based in East Windsor, Connecticut, that opened in 1983. With the two companies Jeff is now able to offer vacuum furnaces, atmosphere furnaces, carbottoms and nitriding systems. Since 2007 the company has grown to almost 60 employees and several readers suggested the company as the fastest growing furnace manufacturer in North America.

Andres Bernal, President, ION HEAT. Andres like so many in the business was born into it, starting work at his father’s commercial heat treat facility at a very young age. While he still has an involvement in commercial heat treating he makes our list today for his efforts in developing one of the more advanced Ion Nitriding systems in the world. ION HEAT is a manufacturer of plasma nitriding equipment (in addition to other technologies) and since he introduced his products into North America a number of years back he has made a real name for himself in the field of nitriding. Plasma nitriding technology has typically come from Europe but Andres has shown that technology from the Americas can compete with anything on the market.

Kyle Favors, President Heat Treating Services Unlimited, Inc. In the US southeast region few names are as well recognized as that of Kyle Favors, President of Heat Treating Services Unlimited and CF Thermal.  “More than 25 Years of experience in the instrumentation and maintenance of thermal equipment. Past Experience includes Control Systems Analyst and Maintenance Manager for a Large Commercial Heat Treat in the southeastern United States and Field Service Engineer for a (at the time) large instrumentation company that specialize in the heat treating industry. In 1998, Heat Treating Services Unlimited, Inc. (HTSU) was born in Simpsonville, SC, to specialize in the thermal processing industry. HTSU offers complete services for the industry from Refractory to ISO:IEC 17025:2005 Pyrometry Services and has grown to 5 locations. In June 2002, I started CF Thermal, Inc. to be a premier Technical Sales Rep Firm to promote the leaders in the thermal processing Industry to our customers throughout the southeastern United States.”

Joe Fignar, Honda of America Mfg., Inc. Joe is not an individual who we know personally, however several readers suggested him as being a leader in the field of heat treating of automotive components. His title is Senior Heat Treatment Process Engineer in the Gear Department at Honda in the Columbus, Ohio facility. Joe’s job at Honda is to oversee and improve the endothermic gas carburizing process with hot oil quenching for transmission gears and he has held this job since 2018.  He has been project leader for the startup of a new production line for numerous 4WD components for HONDA and ACURA vehicles totaling several millions of dollars in assets and product output for future vehicle models. In addition he has worked on the ASM Heat Treating Society Board of Directors.

Mark Hemsath, Vice President Super IQ & Nitriding at SECO/VACUUM. Mark is like many in the industry in that he was literally born into it by following in his father’s footsteps. He describes himself as a “Heat Treating furnace professional in Nitriding, Carburizing, Atmosphere processes, Vacuum Carburizing, LPC, and Surface Engineering” and Mark made our list in 2019. Recently we had the opportunity to interview Mark, an interview which can be found at Mark Hemsath, VP Super IQ and Nitriding, SECO/WARWICK | The Monty He is a prolific writer and has written a number of articles about heat treat technologies including Intelligent Gas Carburizing with Super IQ. On a more personal note very much to his credit he shares a passion for boating, a passion shared at “The Monty”.

Todd Wenzel, President, Throughput Consulting., Inc. Rounding out our list of the most influential in the North American Heat Treating Industry we have Mr. Todd Wenzel, President and founder of Throughput Consulting a provider of software solutions designed specifically for the Heat Treatment industry; “Mr. Wenzel is a graduate of the Milwaukee School of Engineering and is a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer. He has architected and built custom enterprise software solutions since the mid 1980’s, and has been heavily involved in the Metal Treating sector of manufacturing since 1990. From its inception in 2004, Todd Wenzel has served as President of Throughput Consulting, Inc., an enterprise software consultancy serving the Metal Treating industry. Throughput’s flagship software product, BluestreakT, is the culmination of Mr. Wenzel’s 20+ years of partnering with Heat Treating leaders, to provide software solutions that tackle the industry’s most pressing business challenges.”

Víctor M. Calderón Cabrera, Heat Treat Engineering Manager en Caterpillar Inc. Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico. Victor has quite an impressive background in the captive heat treating industry in Mexico having worked with some of the giants such as Tremec, Meritor and SISAMEX (we could write a book about the in house heat treating department of each of these companies but that is a story for another day). Since 2016 Victor has been Heat Treat Engineering Manager at Caterpillar in Monterrey, Mexico-Caterpillar is probably the largest in house heat treater in all of North America. He was recently featured on “Heat Treat Podcast” speaking with Mr. Carlos Torres of MATTSA.

Dr. Edward Rolinski, Advanced Heat Treat Corp. We have long known the good Doctor as one of the leading experts in the world when it comes to Plasma Nitriding. His teamate Mikel Woods provides this summary of his expertise. “I’d like to recognize my teammate, Dr. Edward Rolinski, for his impact on the heat treat industry, in particular Plasma Nitriding and Nitrocarburizing processes.  Edward has been working in the engineering and/or heat treat fields for more than 50 years and been w/AHT for more than 25 years!  Edward has played an integral role in putting AHT on the map w/regards to his technical expertise, material awareness and incredible engineering background. Edward has written and co-authored numerous technical articles, journals, publications, as well as led training courses with OEM’s, their respective supply chain and colleges across the nation.” 

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Feb. 2 2021 will see an auction of the remaining equipment at Contour Saw of Des Plaines, Illinois, USA-a location which recently closed down. What is being offered is large on quantity but short on quality-quite a number of older furnaces, ovens and endo generators all of which has seen better days. When we last visited this facility the company had over 10 top loading vacuum annealing furnaces manufactured by Lindberg, however now they are not mentioned in the auction. Our prediction is that half of the equipment will be scrapped out as being too old and too specialized with the other half selling for very modest prices, again largely to do with the age.

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We have watched with great interest as additive manufacturer Burloak Technologies in Burlington, Canada has installed a brand new state of the art heat treating department (all the details and photos are below). It would appear that their efforts have paid off as the company states that they are the world’s first additive manufacturer approved by Boeing to additively manufacture aluminium AlSi10Mg components to the Boeing BAC 5673 specification.

“January 28, 2021; Burloak Technologies, Oakville, Ontario, Canada, a division of Samuel, Son & Co., Ltd., has been approved by The Boeing Company to additively manufacture aluminium AlSi10Mg components to the Boeing BAC 5673 specification. Burloak Technologies states it is the world’s first additive manufacturer to achieve this qualification. Burloak and Boeing are now working to apply the BAC 5673 specification to several programmes for existing and future components.

“This approval marks the completion of a qualification process that included a rigorous evaluation of Burloak’s capabilities by Boeing. We would like to thank Boeing’s additive manufacturing team for its collaborative approach,” stated Peter Adams, Burloak’s founder and Chief Innovation Officer. “Together, we developed a well-defined specification that has demonstrated robust, repeatable processes to produce flight components using Additive Manufacturing.” Colin Osborne, Samuel’s president and Chief Executive Officer, commented, “Achieving this qualification further validates Burloak’s position as a global leader in the Additive Manufacturing space, and clearly demonstrates our ability to commercialise this transformational technology. This milestone also signals the increasing importance of Additive Manufacturing within aerospace and represents a step forward on the path to a greener future for aviation.””

“December 1, 2020. Burloak Technologies Completes In House Heat Treating Department; Over the course of this year we have watched with interest as additive manufacturing firm Burloak Technologies in Burlington, Ontario, Canada has developed their in house heat treating department. With the addition of their new Quintus Technologies Hot Isostatic Press the installation is now complete. This by the way is the first commercial HIP unit available in Canada.

“September 14, 2020 Burloak Technologies Installing In-House Heat Treatment Department; Earlier this year we had an exclusive news item about how Additive Manufacturing firm Burloak Technologies was installing a brand new in house heat treating department at their Burlington, Canada facility. We can now say that this AS9100 and Nadcap compliant facility is now in operation and in a very interesting development also taking on commercial heat treatment business for vacuum, air, solution and T6/aging cycles. We say interesting because generally captive heat treaters do not make good commercial heat treaters although there are exceptions-Gleason Works in Rochester, NY, USD is a good example of a company successfully blending captive and commercial heat treating. Having said that the individual in charge of the department at Burloak, is a former Schaeffler Bearings employee and a very experienced fellow with a great deal of knowledge of both captive and commercial heat treating.”

“July 9 2020. “Burloak Technologies Installing In-House Heat Treatment Department; In Burlington, Ontario, Canada we find Burloak Technologies who describe their company thusly;  “Burloak Technologies is Canada’s leading supplier of highly engineered additive manufactured components for demanding applications.” https://burloaktech.com/ The company makes our news section today due to the fact that for months, if not years the company has been planning their brand new, state of the art in house heat treating department and just this week one of the first pieces of equipment arrived-a new Titan vacuum furnace from Ipsen in Rockford, Illinois, USA. Installation and Nadcap qualification are the next steps. Future plans are very ambitious to say the least, with several more large pieces of equipment on order, this includes a furnace for processing aluminum. Additive manufacturing is proving to be a rapidly growing market for furnace manufacturers, already this year we have announced several large heat treatment investments in the field and we would expect this will grow rapidly in the future.”

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“Thermcraft was born in January of 1971, in a small warehouse space in downtown Winston Salem, NC. From that small startup operation, Thermcraft has progressively grown into a leading international manufacturer of thermal processing equipment, offering industrial and laboratory furnaces, ovens, high temperature heating elements, insulation, and replacement parts. Thermcraft now resides in a 70,000 square foot manufacturing and office space located just a few miles from downtown Winston Salem, where it all began. The number one priority at Thermcraft has always been customer service. We look forward to serving the thermal processing industry for another 50 years!”

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Today we are looking at the Aalberts Surface Technologies facility in Värnamo, Sweden part of one of the largest surface treatment and commercial heat treating organizations in the world. Our host today is Mr. Mirko Dandic, who became plant manager in November 2018-Mirko gives us this summary of what has been accomplished in a little over 2 years.

“In the beginning of 2020 we also decided to shut down 2 of our last mesh belt furnaces, one manufactured by Sarlin and the other one by Safed. Even though a market still exists in Sweden for small parts and components that are processed in this type of furnace, pricing and the age of the furnaces made it easy to decide about our future.

At the same time, we made a decision to expand our sealed quench line so we can grow with this type of process that we are experts at. The market is growing, our customers are growing as well so we decided to adapt and expand in order to be more competitive in the market.

We bought a new RTQ size 10 furnace, a new tempering DC-10 furnace with protective atmosphere and we decided to replace the old loading/unloading car with a new one. All 3 machines were manufactured by Ipsen, who also provided the rest of the line. Our line is very long (40 meters) and really wide, so we ordered a custom-made unloader to fulfil our standards.

After we sold the old belt furnaces we did overhaul 2000 square meters in the oldest part of the plant, fixed the ventilation system, cleaned walls and painted them, filled old oil pits and installed a KGO gas nitriding furnace. This is a new process for us in Värnamo, but our colleagues in Anderstorp are experts in this area and their training and support is extraordinary. This is just one of the benefits of being part of the Aalberts Group, investments, growth and knowledge is limitless. Mirko Dandic, Plant Manager”

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“Solar Manufacturing recently shipped a Mentor® vacuum furnace to a medical device and implant manufacturer in the Southeast USA. The Model HFL-2018-2IQ features an all-metal insulated hot zone, a load weight capacity of up to 250 lbs., and a maximum operating temperature of 2400° F. The Mentor® vacuum furnace will be used to age harden and anneal medical devices and implants.

“We were awarded the project based on our relationship with Solar Atmospheres and our quick furnace delivery,” states Dan Insogna, Southeast Regional Sales Manager for Solar Manufacturing. “Together, we delivered the Mentor® furnace along with a water system, and a custom heat treat recipe for the medical grade components being processed. Our customer was up and running with their new Mentor® furnace within a week of delivery.”

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.

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 Last week we had a rumor about commercial heat treater Nitrion Do Brazil making a major investment in more vacuum nitriding furnaces, today we can say that the rumor was true and at the same time offer a few more details. This photo shows furnaces #2 and #3 which were recently installed at the plant in Feliz, Brazil. Installation and commissioning started 2 weeks ago and parts are being tested. Installation and start up were performed by Don Longenette of A + Heat Treating of Ohio, USA. The fourth KGO furnace will be delivered in a couple of months. Pictured with these furnaces is Rodolfo Porto, Nitrion Quality Analyst. Nitrion offers both plasma (ion) nitriding and gas nitriding and with this additional equipment Nitrion is probably the largest commercial nitriding company in all of South America.

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“The Heat Treat Podcast” is the first Podcast dedicated to the heat treatment industry and community. The founder, Mr. Carlos Torres explains that the mission is to deliver heat treat information from the experts to the new generation of heat treaters through social media. “The Monty” is very proud to be a part of this effort and to assist through our 7,000 Linkedin followers. In this episode Carlos speaks with Mr. Tracy Dougherty, VP of Sales for furnace builder AFC-Holcroft.

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