August 21, 2020 we had a news item about how a bright spot in the worldwide heat treatment industry is that of firearms (the original note can be found below). A perfect example of that would be Italian gun manufacturer Beretta. Up until 2016 Beretta had been manufacturing in Maryland, USA but due to the states very tough anti gun laws the firm moved to Gallatin, Tennessee and inaugurated the facility April 15, 2016. The 160,000 square foot facility will house the entire R&D and manufacturing division of Beretta USA which, while keeping its historical headquarters in Maryland, will count on a state-of-the-art production plant that will allow for a significant increase in production capacity. This modern plant is based on the highest standard of the “lean production” and features cutting edge industrial and information technologies, which will allow to greatly increase the efficiency of the production processes. This facility has a very modern in house heat treating department which features vacuum heat treating as well as other processes including salt quenching. And guess what? The company can’t keep up with the business and the heat treat department is running at full capacity.
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Furnace builder Nutec Bickley in Monterrey, Mexico recently installed a roller hearth furnace at a Mexican supplier of forged parts for the auto industry. The furnace will be normalizing automotive parts and other motor system components, for instance for motor vehicles and truck tractors. The system has an automatic parts feeder, is gas fired and is designed to operate at 1,000C (1,830F). “The Monty” visited Nutec a couple of years ago and the attached photo shows a large continuous furnace under construction. www.nutecbickley.com
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Powdered Metal parts supplier Capstan Inc., based in California is in the process of installed a brand new Abbott sintering furnace and nitrogen system at their facility in Guadalajara, Mexico. The installation will be completed by the fourth quarter of 2020 and this investment will bring this plant in line with others the company has around the world. Interesting enough the company issued these comments about why they invested in Mexico rather than China; “When looking at China vs. Mexico manufacturing, labor rates in Mexico are now, in many cases, lower than China. In constant dollar terms, hourly manufacturing wages are lower than those in China. Mexico also offers much steadier wages, making it easier for companies to forecast manufacturing costs. As of 2019, the fully burdened direct laborer wage rate in Mexico is about $3.95 per hour vs. $4.50 per hour in China.” – www.napsintl.com“
Earlier this summer we mentioned an auction at FCA in Kokomo, Indiana which featured 4 vacuum nitriders (to provide some background the Fiat Chrysler transmission facility in Kokomo has one of the largest captive heat treating departments in North America). We speculated at the time that probably these would easily find a home although the large size would deter some potential buyers. As it turns out 3 of the 4 were scrapped which surprised us. These photos show some of the units.
IWT Accepts Rohde Furnace After Successfull Testing; In Bremen, Germany we find IWT (Institute fuer Werkstofforientierte Technologien) a research organization dedicted to heat treating which is jointing funded by German industry and the university. We at ”The Monty ”have visited this facility several times over the years and have found it to be very facinating. The organization has been working with German furnace builder Rohde Schutzgasoefen GmbH to develop a new design of furnace and this is the end result.
”The bell hardening center is designed as a classic plant concept with a wide variety of applications designed to cover several different heat treat processes. Due to its modular design the system can easily be expanded to accomodate future developments. It requires a minimal amount of floor space despite the fact that it is completely automated and can handle up to three consecutive batches without manual intervention. The system is extremely efficient because of its excellent thermal insulation, innovative cooling concepts and coordinated furnace construction materials, especially at high temperatures. The main characteristics of the bell hardening center are its modular design and the possibility for expansion with additional tempering furnaces and other components such as cleaning systems and quenching tanks. In fact this hardening center can replace batch furnaces designed for low pressure carburizing. Other important features include the small footprint, due to the facts that it is loaded at different levels, faster heat-up and cool-down to hardening temperature, faster atmosphere composition and more. This system offers oil, salt and gas quenching and has a work zone of 500mm x 600mm. Gases used are nitrogen, air, methanol, ammonia, propane and acetylene.”
In the picture from left to right: Ingo Bunjes IWT Bremen, Dr.-Ing. Matthias Steinbacher IWT Bremen, Raphael Nees, Natasha Rohde, Konstantin Rohde, Jörn Rohde, Vincent Rohde.
We see that Al Baethke retired just a few weeks ago. Al was with US commercial heat treater Paulo for over 28 years as VP of Engineering. Find out how Paulo compares in size to other North American commercial heat treaters here https://themonty.com/articles/largest-north-american-commercial-heat-treats-august-2020/ From SECO/WARWICK we have this press release about a new order they just received from Harsha Engineers in India; “Harsha Engineers Limited, a leading bearing cage manufacturer in India, who has manufacturing facilities in India, China and Romania and who has Customers across 5 Continents, ordered yet another ferritic nitrocarburizing furnace with ZeroFlow technology from SECO/WARWICK. The technology ordered by Harsha is dedicated to Ferritic Nitro Carburizing of bearing cages and was ordered to: improve quality of nitrocarburizing, reduce total cycle and operation cost, meet specific color requirements, and finally provide excellent batch uniformity. The furnace is equipped with a vacuum system, gas control system, turbo cooling, atmosphere cooling system and post oxidation system to get a material very uniform grey color and other tribological properties to meet the specifications of leading bearing manufacturers.
From Oven builder Grieve comes this press release; “550°F TRUCK OVEN; This Grieve oven is a 550°F (288°C) new truck oven customized from the standard TCH-550 model and is currently used for heat processing parts at the customer’s facility. Workspace dimensions of this oven measure 60” W x 60” D x 60” H. 30 KW are installed in Incoloy sheathed tubular heating elements, while a 2000 CFM, 2 HP recirculating blower provides horizontal airflow to the workload. This Grieve truck oven has 6” insulated walls, an aluminized steel interior and aluminized steel exterior with enamel finish. Features include a purge timer, two-position dampers on fresh air inlet and exhaust outlet and a 1200 lb. capacity stainless steel loading truck.”
Somebody is in trouble! We see that auto maker Kia is not sure whether some driveshafts were heat treated or not which is not a good thing; Vehicles Affected: Approximately 830 model-year 2019 Kia Forte sedans. The Problem: The left front axle driveshaft may not have been heat-treated, which can cause it to break, resulting in a sudden loss of drive power and increasing the risk of a crash. To round things out we have this photo from Byron Stewart. Byron is originally from Australia and his father Tom Guler, was a very prominent furnace builder for many years. Byron for the past few years has been designing and building vacuum furnaces for the Chinese market and this is an impressive example. The line you are looking at has two 6 bar vacuum/pressure hardening furnaces and 4 vacuum tempers tempers all designed to heat treat H13 extrusion dies, 1800 mm in diameter and 450 mm thick. The system is being installed at a facility in Yingkou China and should be in operation shorty after a 9 month standstill due to COVID-19.
“Despite uncertain market conditions presented by the Coronavirus pandemic, Ipsen saw an increase in orders placed during July, building positive momentum for the third quarter. Ipsen was awarded five vacuum furnace orders between four customers, each with unique process requirements in the aerospace, defense and commercial heat-treating industries. The product mix varies from MetalMaster® to TurboTreater® to Ipsen’s signature Vacuum Aluminum Brazing furnace, all designed to meet the customers’ specific needs. In addition to the five new orders, Ipsen shipped nine furnaces in July to customers across six states in America as well as Canada and the United Kingdom.
“Ipsen has worked with international operations teams for decades, shipping equipment from the US to countries all over the world,” said Ipsen USA President and CEO Patrick McKenna. “With the identification of Ipsen USA as the Vacuum Center of Excellence, we can continue servicing those companies with the level of quality they expect and deserve.” Orders this year have included a healthy blend of new equipment, aftermarket parts, service and retrofits. Ipsen is hopeful this upward trend will continue through the fourth quarter. For more information on Ipsen’s vacuum furnace product offerings, visit IpsenUSA.com.
Ipsen is the global leader in heat treatment solutions with more than 10,000 operating systems in 70 countries. Through its Global Centers of Excellence in Vacuum and Atmosphere Equipment, Ipsen ] continues to deliver innovations in technology that advance thermal processing while helping customers achieve their goals. Focused on performance and quality, Ipsen supports commercial heat treaters and customers in many industries including aerospace, automotive, energy and medical. With locations in North America, Europe and Asia, and the largest service team in the industry, Ipsen is committed to providing 360° support for customers worldwide.”
There is not the slightest reason for us to state the obvious; in the age of COVID-19 the vast majority of captive and commercial heat treaters alike are not having a good year with one exception-firearms! Every single company which heat treats gun components or munitions either in house or commercially is busier than s**t these days due to the extraordinary growth in gun sales. As we all know in uncertain times people buy weapons and these are certainly very uncertain times. As an example we know of only 1 large, used mesh belt quench and temper line being sold in all of 2020 and it sold sight unseen to a munitions supplier in the US Midwest just a few weeks back. So while things might be rather dismal these days we can take solace in the fact that some heat treaters are doing quite well these days.
July 30, 2020 saw an auction at auto parts supplier Roctel in Guelph, Ontario, Canada (we should point out that while the auction was at Roctel the equipment was actually owned by General Motors). Included in the auction were a number of different items including spline rollers, washers and particularly of interest to us a couple of very impressive Induction Heating systems, specifically an Inductoheat Induction Heat Treat Equipment, Model # Inductoscan, Serial # ME 20354 and an Inductoheat Induction Heat Treat Equipment, Model # I/S-UP16-300-10, Serial # ME 45093-1. Auctions are funny things in that sometimes items are sold at wildly inflated prices, other times at a fraction of their true value. In this particular case the induction systems sold for well under $50,000 which we would consider to be very much on the low end of their value.
Hauck Heat Treatment, the second largest European commercial heat treater as ranked by “The Monty” https://themonty.com/project/l
Because of his years spent in the North American heat treat industry with companies such as Timken Bearings, Bodycote and Thermal Process Holdings Don’s is a name which is easily recognized by many. To take it one step further as Don was involved in heat treat start ups in Mexico, India, China and Thailand we could say that his name is well recognized even outside of North America. A year ago he surprisingly enough left the heat treating industry, however we all know nobody can ever actually leave the business which is why we were not surprised that he now is back and has set up A+ Heat Treating Services, LLC., in the Cleveland, Ohio area. While we are not at liberty to say what he will be doing we can say that we will be providing more details in the near future. We hunted around for a suitable picture and found this one from a few years back. Gord Montgomery is on the left and Don is on the right.
“Gasbarre Thermal Processing Systems is pleased to announce the recent shipment of a Continuous Vacuum Furnace with 10 BAR pressure quench capabilities to a major aerospace manufacturer in North America. The 4 position, 4 zone furnace is rated to 2400°F. The independent load and quench modules allow the heat module to hold temperature and vacuum creating an extremely pure environment. Extended heating element coverage allows for excellent temperature uniformity. As only the workload is cooled in the isolated cooling chamber, it makes for a very efficient system. Quick transference from the heat module to the cool module and fast quench capabilities make this an ideal vacuum furnace to process medium to high volume parts. Gasbarre was chosen as the equipment supplier based on proven performance from past projects with this manufacturer, as well as, extremely low down time metrics with their existing Gasbarre vacuum furnace equipment.
With locations in Plymouth, MI, Cranston, RI and St. Marys, PA Gasbarre Thermal Processing Systems has been designing, manufacturing, and servicing a full line of industrial thermal processing equipment for nearly 50 years. Gasbarre’s product offering includes batch and continuous thermal processing equipment for both atmosphere and vacuum applications as well as a full line of alloy fabrications, replacement parts and auxiliary equipment which consists of atmosphere generators, quench tanks, washers and charge cars. Gasbarre’s equipment is designed for your process by experienced engineers and metallurgists that understand your requirements.”
“The COVID-19 pandemic sparked an unprecedented downturn in business, one that President Bob Hill has not seen in his 25 years with Solar Atmospheres. It was during this pause in activity, that Bob and his team decided to take a deep dive into their business practices, especially examining the safety procedures of all employees.
During a recent safety meeting, a quality technician reported that performing quarterly thermocouple and vacuum calibration duties were exponentially more hazardous on larger vacuum furnace chambers. To calibrate against a standard, the technician must access plug-in points, which are traditionally located on the top of a furnace- the main valve port, used for vacuum calibration and the various Type S thermocouple contacts, used for thermocouple calibrations. Most smaller furnaces could be accessed easily with a step ladder deeming the climb reasonably safe. However, on larger chambers, the plug-in points could not be accessed by a ladder. Therefore, tying off, climbing, and balancing oneself 12 feet in the air became the only mode of access to these critical points.
“Our team worked extremely hard to devise a system that enabled the calibration process to occur with two feet on solid ground” said Hill. “For the thermocouple calibrations, our team ran extension wires from the TC’s with plugs to chest height. Additionally, we identified unused ground level feed through ports within the chambers and adapted them for vacuum calibrations.” Solar’s quality team validated the appropriate data from these procedural changes. These continuous improvement initiatives yielded no negative effects on the calibration results and dramatically reduced a potential unsafe work hazard.
Solar Atmospheres of Western PA’s maintenance team is proactively making these modifications to all existing furnaces, no matter the size. Our supplier of choice, Solar Manufacturing, now plans to incorporate these safety features as an option on all future furnace builds.
Solar Atmospheres of Western PA will continue their unwavering commitment to a safe and healthy workplace environment, to ensure additional accident-free years for future generations.”
