Once upon a time in North America gas fired Endothermic Generators reigned supreme when it came to atmosphere heat treating. Unreliable and problem plagued they were an easy prey to Nitrogen/Methanol systems which promised to be clean, reliable, simple and low maintenance and consequently 30-40 years ago Nitrogen/Methanol systems slowly captured a larger and larger share of the market. However Advancements in Endo Generator technology removed virtually all of the original headaches and combined with the far lower cost of endo gas as opposed to Nitrogen the end result is that Generators again reign supreme.

This is of course largely ancient history now but what prompted us to mention it today is that we ran across a large captive heat treat earlier this week who were largely unaware of the relative costs of the two systems. In an effort to prove our point that endo generators are a far more cost effective way to go we reached out to one of the largest furnace builders in North America who provided this handy/dandy Nitrogen/Methanol vs. Endo Calculation which shows the relative costs.

At this point we should mention two caveats;

The figures in this example will vary tremendously according to location so this is only designed to show the relative costs as opposed to exact costs.

The comparison between the two atmospheres is assuming that a constant natural gas supply is available. In a location with no gas available Nitrogen/Methanol might well be the only option available.

To return to our original statement “Why Would Anybody Run a Nitrogen/Methanol System?-our answer would be we are not entirely sure why unless no gas is available.

Nitrogen/Methanol vs. Endo Calculation – Generator [4500 CFH]

1. Cost of methanol = $2.04/gallon @ 240 ft³/gallon = $0.0085/ft³
2. To make 4500 CFH equivalent of endo gas requires 11.25 gallons of methanol + 1800 ft³ of nitrogen
3. Nitrogen cost = $.7072/100 ft³ = $0.007072/ft³
4. Cost of natural gas @ $9.21/1000 ft³ = $0.00921/ft³
5. Cost of electricity = $0.0842/KWH

This computes to:

Nitrogen/Methanol

• Methanol: 11.25 gallons x 240 ft³ x $0.0085  =                     $22.95 / hour
• Nitrogen: 1800 ft³ x $0.007072 =                                           $12.73 / hour

–      Electricity to run methanol pump = .74 KW x $0.07 =          $  0.06 / hour

–      TOTAL                                                                                   $35.74 / hour

Endo generator gas

• Natural gas: reaction. = 900 ft³ x 0.00921 =                          $  8.29/ hour
• Natural gas to heat generator = 200 ft³ x $0.00921=              $  1.84 / hour
• Electricity to run air pump = 3.54 KW x $0.00842 =            $  0.30 / hour

–      TOTAL                                                                                   $  10.43 / hour

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Solar Manufacturing recently shipped a Mentor® vacuum furnace to a customer in the Southeast USA that services the defense industry. The Model HFL-2018–2IQ features a graphite-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 precipitation hardened stainless steels and beryllium copper.

“We provided a complete turnkey solution to our customer,” states Dan Insogna, Southeast Regional Sales Manager for Solar Manufacturing. “We delivered the Mentor® furnace along with a water system, and the recipes for the heat treat cycles their materials require.”

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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“Major automotive, pumps and food processing equipment makers can’t be wrong in choosing an alternative for hard chrome plating!

With more than 20% of the turnover coming from hard chrome replacement projects, Expanite, the Danish pioneer in surface hardening of stainless steel, is on its way to position itself as one of the most used alternatives for hard chrome plating. Finding a replacement for hard chrome plating can be challenging, and with EU regulations lowering the limit value for hexavalent chromium, across the industrial markets, need to find alternatives. Hard chrome plating, in various forms, has been one of “the standards” to improve resistance towards wear and corrosion for stainless steel components – and as new solutions are required, Expanite’s hardening technologies has documented its effectiveness within automotive, pumps, valves and food processing equipment markets.

Sustainable solutions, diffusion vs. coatings

Unlike a hard chrome coating, where the electrolyte used during processing may contain hexavalent chromium ions (Cr6+), which are hazardous to human health and is environmentally harmful, the Expanite treatments involves only nitrogen and carbon atoms. This makes Expanite an environmentally friendly and sustainable process. Expanite effectively removes the native oxide film covering stainless steels during the first steps of the gas process without adding any aggressive chemicals, and this allows controlled diffusion of carbon and nitrogen atoms in the underlying steel hereafter. 

Expanite replacing hard chrome plating

“More than 20% of the parts we are processing today with the Expanite process are replacements for hard chrome plating”, says Thomas Abel Sandholdt CEO at Expanite. Whether it’s the valve parts of a fuel injector within automotive, a bushing for marine engines or the rotor for a large pump – they have all experienced the benefits of choosing a diffusion process with no risk of coatings cracking or inhomogeneous hardening zones – and on top comes the compliance with the EU Reach program on reduction of Cr6+ as well as the fundamental decision to move towards more sustainable solutions. Talking about replacing hard chrome with Expanite, Thomas Abel Sandholdt highlights opportunities in the automotive industry with valve components. “Independently of each other, three major suppliers to the automotive industry approached Expanite. They all produce fuel injectors with valve components in ferritic stainless steel which traditionally were hard chromed plated. All three were facing issues such as wear, general quality problems and high cost – and they all found various solutions within the Expanite toolbox. The first of the three projects went into serial production in January 2020, while the two other projects are scheduled to begin serial production in 2021 and 2022,”. “As we are often our customers´ biggest secret, many will not allow us to reveal that we actually have helped them change from hard chrome plating”, Thomas Abel Sandholdt continues.

Competitive cost 

From the first look, Expanite hardening technology might seem costly compared to hard chromium plating, but Thomas Abel Sandholdt is convinced the price difference will equalize, once total life cycle cost and performance is taken into account. The proof lies in the decisions made by so many of Expanite’s customers. 

About Expanite

Expanite was founded in 2010 by leading experts in materials and surface hardening. The company is headquartered in Hillerød near Copenhagen and has treatment centers in the USA, Germany, Korea and China. Expanite´s solutions are applicable to all stainless steel types and can be tailored into a customer´s own product line as part of a licensing agreement.”

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For years now “The Monty” has been interviewing some of the best known individuals in the worldwide heat treating industry and the end result is that we have 9 pages of interviews in our archives section https://themonty.com/articles-interviews/ A quick scroll though will show you interviews with Mr. Stephen Harris, CEO of Bodycote and one of the most influential figures in the industry as rated by “The Monty”, Dr. Klaus Löser, of ALD, Rich Ott, of Linamar, one of the largest captive heat treaters in the world, Pat McKenna, President of furnace builder Ipsen, Martin Beaton of Bohler-Uddeholm and a host of others. And our interviews will continue with several already in the works-for instance we will be speaking with the Managing Director of one of the largest press quenching companies in the world next week, the President of ETSA, the second largest commercial heat treater in Mexico and a bunch of others. If you have an interest in joining these illustrious ranks feel free to drop us a line at [email protected] Currently on our home page we are speaking with Mr. Paul van Doesburg, CEO of Ipsen Germany.​

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Regular readers of “The Monty” will know that for over 20 years now we have prided ourselves on providing the most up to date news in the global heat treatment industry and today we have several interesting items for you, items that in most cases are exclusive to “The Monty”. We start off in Germany today for a rather upsetting item.  In spite of all the trials and tribulations in the world these days most companies in the industry appear to be weathering the storm if not exactly thriving, this takes us to Germany where unfortunately we have run across a company which is struggling. HSH Härtereitechnik in Kranenburg has been servicing the heat treatment industry since 1988 by providing furnace components, service and even building new furnaces, in particular Ipsen style atmosphere furnace and CIEFFE style nitriding furnaces. Unfortunately we have been lead to believe that the company has entered Chapter 11 protection. At its peak this was a fairly good sized company with almost 40 employees.

On the good news side of things we are hearing interesting rumors about Italian furnace builder CIEFFE which we believe is the largest furnace builder in the country. Specifically we are being told that the company will be announcing before the end of the year news about expansion plans-we will keep you updated.  The photo below shows part of the CIEFFE team at the 2018 HK 2019 exhibition in Cologne, Germany.

Now this is real recent news. Late last Friday US furnace builder AFC-Holcroft received an order for a brand new gas fired batch IQ furnace with working dimensions of 36″ X 72″ X 36″. While we aren’t going to tell you the name of the buyer today we can say that they appear on our list of the largest North American commercial heat treaters https://themonty.com/project/largest-north-american-commercial-heat-treats-august-2020/

If things went according to plan commercial heat treater Metalex out in Colorado has new owners. This is quite a small commercial shop but over the years the owner Greg Alexander has done a very good job of running it and maintaining a very good reputation in the industry. We understand that the new owners have some experience in heat treating in California. In Mexico we see that Lilia Jasso Administrative Manager at Nitrex Queretaro was recently elected President of the ASM Mexico chapter. In the photo below we see the Nitrex Queretaro Management Team (from left to right) – Manuel Argüelles, Finance Manager; Jorge Ramírez, Quality Manager; Ricardo Vargas, Operations Manager; Lilia Jasso, Administrative Manager; Carlos Llerena, Plant Manager. By the way Lilia’s brother Roberto has worked with Marathon Controls in Mexico for many years, in the second picture below which we at “The Monty” took at the ASM show in Mexico earlier this year Roberto can be seen third from the right.

Down in Texas Klein Tools is pretty proud of the fact that they have no list time injuries in the last 1 million work hours and this included their heat treat department. If you recall back in 2017 the company made a major investment in the heat treat area in the form of 6 batch IQ furnaces from Surface Combustion. “Klein Tools, a family-owned and operated hand tools manufacturer, today announced its Easy Drive manufacturing facility in Mansfield, Texas, achieved one million work hours without a lost-time injury. Reaching the notable safety milestone on July 22, 2020, more than 240 employees across departments in Plastics, Machining and Heat Treat had no work-related illnesses, injuries or accidents involving time away from work since May 2018.”

From L & L Special Furnaces we have this press release; “L&L Special Furnace Co., Inc., has shipped a medium sized high temperature box furnace to a government military defense organization located in the southeastern United States. The furnace is used for military ceramic composite development along with research and development for various other components. The furnace has a working zone of 24” wide by 18” high by 36” deep. The furnace is rated for continuous operating temperatures up to 2500°F / 1371°C.”

And to round things our for today we have this rather interesting photo taken a couple of years back. This is at a Bodycote (commercial heat treating) facility in Wuxi, China. On the far  left you can see Gord Montgomery and on the far right Jordan Montgomery of “The Monty”.

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It’s interesting that yesterday we mentioned orders for gas nitriders, today we mention a Plasma Nitriding order. From ION HEAT we have this press release about a system they have just shipped to a manufacturer in the US, this we believe is the second or third system the company has shipped this year. The one picture below shows the President of Ion Heat, Mr. Andrés Bernal along with Dale Montgomery of “The Monty”-in the background you can see Medellín, Colombia.

“In recent months we have seen that big captive heat treaters have set their sights on the plasma nitriding furnaces made by ION HEAT. We had access to some of the photos of the last GlowTech unit they assembled, before it was shipped to the United States. Andrés Bernal, president of ION HEAT, tells us: “We place a lot of emphasis on details, we are doing ‘personalized’ engineering for our customers, from the design of the fixture or the choice of features according to the needs of the production line, up to the size of the furnace. I am convinced that in these times, manufacturers must allow customers to optimize the capabilities of their equipment as their business adapts to the changing demands of the market” It is worth highlighting the company’s commitment to plasma, since it is considered the most efficient and clean option to take on the new challenges of nitriding processes.”

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With 100 years of experience in the design and manufacture of refractory alloy castings to the heat treatment market, the Cronite Group added machining and assembly of graphite and CFC fixtures to our product offerings in 1995. The Carbon factory in our Arnage, France plant produces a full range of products from graphite furnace parts to complex 3D CFC fixtures.

The design and R&D expertise of the Cronite Group continues to drive us into the future in our support of the heat treatment market. Our latest development is a new generation of products combining refractory alloys and Carbon materials to achieve the perfect balance of cost, strength, weight, and temperature/process resistance. This technology is particularly effective for vacuum heat treatment, atmosphere carburizing/hardening, and low pressure carburizing with gas or oil quenching.

The principle is simple. Combine the benefits of each material to maximize load size, life cycle, and process results all while minimizing cost. There are many aspects to be considered when designing the optimal hybrid CFC/Alloy fixture and the Cronite Groups expertise in design, alloy development, casting, machining and your heat treatment process allows us to develop and deliver the optimal solution. Distortion reduction, wear and abrasion resistance during loading/unloading, elimination of eutectic points, are just a few of the additional considerations taken when developing the most cost effective solution.

The following ring gear fixture example in low-pressure carburizing, illustrates the concept quite well. The base tray and the vertical grid are supplied as castings in Mancellium or our new proprietary carburization resistant CR alloys. An alloy base tray is better suited for the interface with the furnace internal material handling. The vertical support grid is also ideally suited for supply as a casting in one of our carburization resistant alloys (low dimensional change) due to the lower cost and direct load transfer to the base tray. The CFC arms provides greater strength elimination of creep deformation to support the overhung load of gears. This elimination of creep deformation is ideally suited for automated loading/unloading.

Part adapters are produced using lost wax due to the size and for the precision interface with the CFC arms without additional machining. Using alloy for the ring gear contact points eliminated abrasion wear on the CFC during loading/unloading.

The Cronite design team utilizes Finite Element Analysis and Simulation-Driven Design software to ensure our solutions are perfectly suited for their application. Fixtures are optimized to maintain a high safety margin while reducing the use of expensive carbon composite elements. Use of these FEA and Simulation software tools for strength, creep, and deflection calculation allows our design team to rapidly develop fixture solutions with longer service life and reduction of customer part distortion during the heat treatment process.

The Cronite Groups extensive R&D laboratory performs extensive destructive, fatigue, cycle, and environmental testing to confirm real world results match FEA methods results for alloys and relevant fiber orientation CFCs.

This independent analysis and testing of CFC materials has provided us an extensive and reliable material performance database for use in our computer modeling software and our selection of the highest quality CFC manufacturers.

As shown on the stress-strain image above, CFC materials exhibit exceptional strength and predictable deflection at elevated temperature. The material alone is not sufficient to guarantee satisfactory results. Parts must be properly supported and guided to minimize distortion which can be difficult or cost prohibitive with a CFC only solution. Our hybrid combination of CFC with cast alloy part supports solves this problem.

Our use of cast carburization resistant and non-stick materials like Mancellium and CR Alloys for the part contacting elements eliminates the potential of carbon transfer from the CFC to the customer part, eutectic points, and wear or fracture of the CFC surfaces during manual or automated loading/unloading. Cast alloy contact elements are also superior to ceramics as they are more resistant to the fast heating and cooling rates of the heat treatment process. Cast alloys also exhibit similar thermal growth as the fixtured parts, preventing another potential source of heat treatment distortion.

As Cronite employs multiple rapid prototype techniques and processes in our production facilities, we can deliver fixtures for benchmark and development testing quickly and cost efficiently.

“KGO has recently sold 3 gas nitriding furnaces to 3 different locations in the Midwest United States. The furnaces feature the unique control system developed by KGO and Stange. These 3 furnaces will make 25 total KGO furnaces throughout North America. The furnaces are currently being installed and commissioned with assistance from Don Longenette [email protected] 330-313-6993. KGO is a 60 year old furnace manufacturer based in Germany.”

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Perhaps we’re exaggerating slightly but the IHEA (Industrial Heating Equipment Association) monthly economic report for August is the most positive we have seen for quite some time. This is the condensed version;

There has been a remarkable level of economic turnaround taking place in the last couple of months. Of the eleven indicators we watch there has been a recovery in every one of them. With gains like this there should be wild celebrations and dancing in the streets but the majority of the industrial community remains a bit subdued and cautious and for a very simple reason. These gains are coming off record losses and in the vast majority of these readings the gains have not yet managed to return to the numbers registered at the start of the year. It is akin to getting very excited about having lost twenty pounds and then remembering that one had gained 100 before starting that diet. This is not to detract from this clear rebound. Given the data that was showing up just a few months ago, the situation now could be far worse at this point and if there is a continuation of these recent trends there could be a recovery of that first quarter momentum by the beginning of the fourth quarter.

With every index reading trending positive there is not much to contrast so the key issue is why. What is the prime motivation for the comeback and where might the weak points be? There are three major factors at work as far as these gains are concerned and perhaps three major reasons to remain a little concerned about the end of the year and into next. The first and most important growth factor is the most obvious – elements of the lockdown have been lifted. This was a most unusual recession as it was imposed. That point has been made dozens of times as this economic crisis was precipitated by a government reaction to COVID 19.

The plan was that two months of shutdown would be enough to thwart the spread but it did not work out that way. There was no May rebound and there have been continued lockdown efforts in many states. Where there has been a relaxation of the restrictions there has been economic growth. The second factor influencing growth has been the resumption of consumer demand. It was hoped that consumers would be eager to resume their old habits but there was no guarantee and there was some hesitation as far as consumption was concerned. That largely vanished by the middle of the summer. The final factor as far as growth was concerned was the willingness of the producers to try to meet that recovering demand. Production levels have been increasing through the last few months and there has been little indication that activity was being slowed deliberately as a means by which to boost prices through manufactured shortages.

Perhaps the most potent unknown surrounds the election. There is always a concern when the possibility exists for a change in leadership. That concern ramps up when there is more at stake than just the White House. The business community is affected more by holds power in Congress as this is where those fiscal decisions are made. The concern that exists with this election that has not been a factor before is the reaction after the races are over. There have been warnings from many in the financial community of chaos after the vote – that the losing side will not accept the outcome and that this will lead to civil strife. They are suggesting that companies expecting to need financing make their request right away as they are worried they will not be able to meet those needs later. The markets are poised for a massive crash if the election aftermath is violent.

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This Grieve oven is a 1250°F (667°C) inert atmosphere oven, currently used for heat treating firearms components at the customer’s facility. Workspace dimensions of this oven measure 48” W x 48” D x 36” H. 30 KW are installed in Incoloy sheathed tubular heating elements, while a 1400 CFM, 1-1/2 HP recirculating blower provides horizontal airflow to the workload. Inert atmosphere ovens protect parts from oxidation using any non-flammable gas such as nitrogen, argon or carbon dioxide.

This Grieve inert atmosphere oven features 12” insulated walls, all interior seams welded gas-tight, an air jacket on the inner oven for cooling, 16” high integral oven stand, 16-gauge 304 stainless steel interior and enamel-painted aluminized steel exterior. The oven is reinforced for 2000 lb. loads, allowing the customer’s part rack to sit on the oven work space floor.

The oven meets all requirements for inert atmosphere construction, including those in NFPA 86, FM and OSHA standards. Controls on this Grieve oven include a programmable temperature controller with data logging, capability, 975 CFM cooling blower with air flow safety switch and automatic purge solenoid. An inert atmosphere inlet (1/2” NPT) with pressure regulator maintains positive pressure within the oven.

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