“Solar Atmospheres of Western Pennsylvania recently completed a hot zone replacement on one of their larger horizontal car bottom vacuum furnaces. This is the second hot zone rebuild over the 17 years of furnace operation. The furnace, with a work zone measuring 54”W x 54”H x 144”L and a load capacity of 50,000 pounds, has been in service since 2003, and is the first furnace built by our sister company, Solar Manufacturing.
The furnace has a maximum operating temperature of 2800°F and performs many different daily thermal cycles ranging from 500°F – 2750°F. The furnace has a front door and a back door to allow complete access during the loading and unloading of the furnace from either end.
The hot zone consists of three ring assemblies along the length of the furnace to support the furnace graphite felt insulation and the circular graphite heating elements. Insulation and heating elements are also provided on the loading cars to provide uniform heating on the bottom of the furnace hot zone.
The insulation was replaced on the rings and doors, and new heating elements were installed on the entire length of the furnace. This rebuild has resulted in essentially a “new furnace” condition – ready for the next 17 years.”
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“The Monty Heat Treat News” has been asked to publicize an upcoming auction in the USA which features some heat treating furnaces. The equipment is located at an aerospace facility and without a shadow of the doubt it is the nicest used equipment we have ever run across. There are 3 or 4 items of interest to heat treaters in the auction including these two, a 2016 L & L Special Furnace, Inert/Nitrogen Electric Hearth Furnace and a 2018 Ipsen/VFS 2 bar quenching vacuum furnace. More details on the auction to come.
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Recently we have had several posts asking the burning question “Is Vacuum Carburizing with Oil Quenching a Growing Trend in the Heat Treatment Industry”? The post below from December 18/2020 started our conversation. We posed the question as furnace builders SECO and ECM both introduced new concepts over the past year and Ipsen has been offering a similar product for a number of years. Now we are hearing a rumor that furnace builder AFC-Holcroft in Wixom, Michigan is also ready to introduce a similar product. AFC is one of the largest furnace builders in North America and certainly the company has the knowledge and ability to offer such a system and do a good job at it. We hunted through our file photos and found this photo of a CI Hayes system who of course was one of the pioneers of vacuum carburizing with oil quenching. We will keep you posted.
“December 18/2020 Post; The global heat treatment industry has often been described as being mature, staid, conservative and slow to change and these accusations are entirely warranted. So it is with interest that we watch to see what new technologies come along and whether they become a trend, that is the topic of this news item. Over the past year two companies have introduced new products which are fairly similar, vacuum furnaces with oil quenching which are designed for carburizing applications. Now there is nothing new about this technology, what is new is that it comes in a new package, basically a standard batch IQ configuration. Since Batch IQ furnaces are the most common style of furnace in the world this makes for a pretty slick idea. Hard on the heels of these new products comes a rumor that one of the larger furnace manufacturers in North America is poised to announce a similar product in the new year. Look forward to some more information about vacuum carburizing with oil quenching and its possible effect on the heat treating market next week.”
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We are very pleased to be able to offer an interview with an individual we very much respect, Mr. Mark Hemsath, VP Super IQ and Nitriding, SECO Vacuum.
Describe your position and history with SECO/VACUUM.
Hi Gord, I am currently the North American lead for two of our signature technologies. SECO/WARWICK Group is well known for Vacuum Furnaces, advanced solutions in high pressure gas quenching, including our single piece flow equipment known as Uni-CaseMaster and our 4D Quench. My products are gas Nitriding and Carburizing via our Super IQ furnace family. These two surface treatments, Nitriding (and FNC) and Carburizing, are probably the largest volume of heat treated parts in the US. Our equipment is unmatched in quality and in our utilization of advanced technologies in our furnace designs.
How did you get into the business?
SECO/WARWICK is pushing a new carburizing technology. Can you explain this a little further?
We actually took a very well proven technology, known as our CaseMaster Evolution, which is a classic vacuum carburizing and oil quench furnace and we re-imagined it. This furnace line is targeted at aerospace, but the design makes it rather expensive. So we wondered, how do we use the benefits of Low Pressure Carburizing and Vacuum heating and marry it to a less expensive and standard oil quench? The result is a fantastic furnace that is both highly productive, modern and has the best of both worlds (vacuum and atmosphere). And the kicker…. We priced it very aggressively!
What is the status of the Super IQ?
We are almost finished building our second unit. We have met all our goals. We are now aggressively offering the furnace for sale. In addition to higher quality, this furnace offers more temperature ranges and flexibility, yet still uses standard oils, washers and standard tempers. It truly will remake the carburizing market.
You mentioned your long history in Nitriding, what attracted you to Nitriding?
First, there was no attraction! I love technology and I especially like processes. Nitriding is actually much more complex than some other heat treatments. Hence, that was my attraction. When I joined SECO/WARWICK in early 2014, I was intrigued by the gas nitriding line, but it was still rather new to the company. SECO/WARWICK actually built furnaces for a decade for another supplier. Around 2009 we began to push our new nitriding controls technology. When I arrived in 2014, I saw a need to better define our high level of experience and tweak our messaging. State-side, we had no real process expert. I decided I needed to be that expert and I spent many hours and days with our world-renown expert Leszek Maldzinski.
I researched any paper I could find (I started out in the industry doing a lot of research for my father, so I always enjoyed discovering new papers and books on subjects). So, basically, I was self taught, with the help of many experts at SECO/WARWICK in Europe and many friends I have made in the subject of gas and ion nitriding, including Dr. Rolinski, while I was at AHT. What you get with SECO/VACUUM and SECO/WARWICK are science-based process experts and incredibly well-designed equipment. Many people make and sell furnaces. We sell capabilities in heat treatment. With SECO/VACUUM you get expertise from people who have done heat treating, like myself and our R&D people.
What do you enjoy most about the heat treatment business?
Gord, I enjoy helping customers. Often our customers know how to make parts for their industry. When they come to us, they may only be outsourcing the heat treatment. You would be shocked how many people rarely even know the specs they need to heat treat to. So our job is to ask the right questions and use our experience to craft a solution. Since we are a pretty full-service manufacturer, we can solve a lot of scenarios. For instance, if you have a tool steel hardening need, we can offer high pressure quench vacuum furnaces and we also have the nitriding furnaces for those parts that demand a precision gas nitrided layer after hardening and tempering, say for H13 tool steel.
For carburizing, we now have a viable solution for those people looking to carburize low alloy grades that require oil quenching and high volume production. With gas quenching, it gets expensive to batch carburize, as smaller loads are often necessary to get good quenching.
For very high production, we have the 4D Quench, gas quench option, which can offer press-quench quality. So we really are the go-to company for any manufacturer looking to bring heat treat in-house or looking to expand in-house heat treating.
How has COVID affected your business?
In the beginning we were like everyone else. It got challenging. I have always worked from home so that was the easy part! It has been quite the adjustment for many others in our company. Some people just do not like working from home, but I think it is now going to be a part of the work landscape. As far as business, we really took off after mid year. We had a number of large and interesting projects finally close this year and we had a really good year. Next year is looking even better for us in North America and we see the activity picking up even more. We are very optimistic! Even in Europe, we see resiliency in the demand. All our hard work in product advancement and in focusing on core technologies is paying off and we think 2021 will be a banner year. I can’t wait to help more customers. Call me.
What challenges has SECO seen in 2020 besides the obvious on-COVID?
As with everyone else, the product mix will change. Much less focus on aerospace, so we are looking at 3D printing, medical, defense, and automotive, as well as general industrial like tool steel hardening, nitriding and FNC processes. Oil and gas is weaker and agriculture seems stagnant. Opportunities exist in general industrial as we see tremendous growth in basic items like distribution centers (conveyors and robots), trucks, marine and RV.
What in your opinion is the single most exciting innovation you have seen in the course of your career? This could be anything from the widespread use of oxygen probes in carburizing applications, the use of acetylene in vacuum carburizing situations or even advances in burner technology.
Well, believe it or not, this advancement is right here at SECO/WARWICK. I think our 4D Quench product is very significant. From a technology standpoint, let’s go back to when I started in the business. My father had various patents in impinging jets in convection improvements and I worked with him in the 1990’s on these advances and patents. Uniform convection has always been important to me and my training is in convective heating and cooling. 4D quenching uses impinging gas jets to quench parts. These tiny, high pressure jets, along with the fourth dimension of spinning the part, is brilliant. We also do not have the boiling gas film boundaries, which adds to liquid quench problems and distortions. So, purely from a technical point of view, this technology is very significant for quenching with controlled and limited distortions. I congratulate our team and Maciej Korecki on this technically superior concept and product.
Mark how about some predictions for next year? You’ve told us you expect 2021 to be a very good year for SECO but what about the industry in general? More competition from Asian furnace builders? Consolidation or acquisitions amongst the furnace builders? A rebound in aerospace heat treating? Where do you think.
Gord, we have seen some tremendous structural changes due primarily to COVID. This has meant a number of things.
1) Recreation, in a distanced manner, has become more important. This has led to the marine industry and RV industry exploding doing incredible sales. You know I love boating and it is crazy here in Florida. Boats are flying off the lots and it is hard to get engine parts. In RV’s, a friend went shopping and one large dealer said they are selling 30-50 RV’s a day!
2) On the converse, people are flying for travel and business much less. I do not see a significant return in volume until middle to late 2022. This will hurt common aerospace. I just saw that the 737 MAX is approved again and that means all those jets sitting in fields will come back into the market (a soft market). Military will stay strong, as will private jets.
3) Space is very active again, not seen in decades. Space X is leading here and Aerojet Rocketdyne is being bought by Lockheed.
4) People are moving from cities and working from home. We are seeing urban office areas being emptied. No one wants to live or work in a densely populated area and they have learned to work from home and many like it. In Florida, where I live, it means an explosion of home sales, etc. as we see massive new residents, this means tremendous construction on roads and infrastructure. Other states like Tennessee, Georgia, the Carolinas, and Texas are also benefitting from this migration.
5) People have abandoned retail shopping in droves and transitioned much faster to Amazon and other online shopping. This has put a huge burden on delivery services to keep up, and Amazon keeps building distribution centers. One last trend is we have virtually stopped the growth and change to Uber travel. In 2019 people were buying less cars and living in dense urban centers. Now, people need their own cars as they are leaving these places and Uber has hit a wall. This should bode well for Automotive in 2021. Of course, electric and hybrid vehicles are a huge part of that growth and this will even accelerate more in 2021 and 2022.
In all, this represents more structural changes than we have ever seen in one year, by far! Throw in guns being bought everywhere, and we have a good year coming for heat treating, heat treat furnaces and regional changes in these markets. It is really exciting for someone like me, who likes to study manufacturing trends. I will not even get into how much cash has been and is being pumped (and will be) into our markets by Government spending and the Federal Reserve Bank.
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Effective January 4, 2021 McLaughlin Furnace Group of Avilla, Indiana, USA has appointed independent manufacturers representative firm WG Montgomery Ltd., as exclusive representatives for the territories of Canada and New York state. Jeff McLaughlin, founder of the company had this to say; “We are very excited to be working with such a long established manufacturers rep firm with a proven track record. Since their inception WG Montgomery Ltd., has sold over $45,000,000.00 USD worth of atmosphere heat treating equipment. We look forward to a long and mutually prosperous relationship.”
About McLaughlin Furnace Group; “In 2007 Jeff McLaughlin, founded McLaughlin Services and quickly become an industry leader. Then in 2017, McLaughlin purchased Vesco, a vacuum service company based in East Windsor, Connecticut, that opened in 1983. The firm offers complete furnace rebuild services as well as their industry leading “Tru-Mix” Endothermic generators, “Tru-Carb” Batch IQ furnaces and “Tru-Push” pusher furnaces. https://www.mclaughlinsvc.com/
About WG Montgomery Ltd: “WG Montgomery Ltd., is a third generation manufactures representative firm founded in 1969 by William Gordon Montgomery. The company specializes in equipment for the heat treatment industry including furnace controls, CFC fixturing, cooling systems, salt recovery systems and used furnaces https://themonty.com/ “
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In Velbert, Germany gear supplier Wolfgang Schmahl GmbH & Co., has long been a believer in low pressure carburizing (LPC) and to prove it they have added more capacity. The company had an existing system from IHI and to close out 2020 they completed installation of two more IHI VCB Furnaces. To our European and 
Wolfgang Schmahl GmbH & Co. is a highly specialized manufacturer of gearwheels and gear units used around the world. Today, the company employs more than 180 people on a production area of 10,000 m2. From the outset, the company has specialized in the production of gearwheels and transmission parts as well as the assembly of complete gear units.
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It is truly with regret that we mention the closing of one of the oldest commercial heat treating companies in North America, the Robert Wooler Company of Dresher, Pennsylvania, USA. Founded in 1923 the company has a very impressive history which includes NADCAP certification which allowed the firm to service many of the local aerospace companies. At its peak a few years back it had over 40 employees making it a larger than average commercial heat treater. Even recently the company employed 25 individuals and was a viable business, however a number of factors including the difficulty in finding good experienced people lead to the owner deciding to close it down. The last work is being accepted this week and the company will continue to process customers’ parts through at least the first quarter of 2021 with the equipment being auctioned off the second quarter of 2021.
As a footnote to this story we will add that as far as we can tell the oldest commercial heat treater in the USA is Commercial Steel Treating Company in Michigan started in 1916 by Anthony and Ralph Hoensheid.
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FPM Heat Treating headquartered in Elk Grove Village, Illinois has long been one of the largest commercial heat treaters in North America as rated by “The Monty Heat Treat News” https://themonty.com/project/l
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One of the oldest heat treat representative firms in North America is the Duffy Company in the Chicago, Illinois, USA area. For many years the company has repped for firms such as SSi, Williams, Wisconsin Oven and several others, this is in addition to their distribution of stop off paints, generator catalyst and spark igniters. During this time Tim McGurn has helped the company grow and prosper, however all good things come to an end and as of the end of 2020 Tim will be retiring. We hunted through our file photos for a good picture of Tim and came up with this one taken at the FNA show in Indianapolis in 2018. This particular photo was taken at the SSi sales meeting. Left to right; Shawn Krivitz (Duffy Company), Bob Fincken (SSi), Sean Duffy (Duffy Company), Tim McGurn, Steve Thompson (SSi), Kevin Duffy (Duffy Company).
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Our previous news item mentioned how Tim McGurn of the Duffy Company in th US was retiring after many years in the heat treatment industry. In the UK we see that Steve Sherwood who was Works Manger at commercial heat treater Hauck in Cheltenham will also be retiring at the end of this year.
“After 40 years in the Heat Treatment game, 25 years of which has been with Hauck Heat Treatment the final whistle has blown and Full Time has been reached. I will leaving my role as Works Manager on December 31st 2020. I have had the pleasure of working and dealing with some great people, work colleagues (past and present) customers and suppliers alike, many of whom have become very close friends that I know I will keep in touch with. I personally thank each & every one of you for the relationships we have created professionally and personally and the support given. Sincere thanks to all the team at Hauck Cheltenham, we have been through good times, bad times, trials and tribulations with many laughs along the way, but in main, it has been my pleasure knowing you all. I am happy that you have all played a part in my time in the industry and wish you all the best for the future. Wishing you and your families a Very Merry Xmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year Steve.”
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