We are very pleased today to be able to offer you an interview with Mr. Jörn Rohde, President of furnace builder ROHDE Schutzgasöfen GmbH. In this interview Jörn talks about his Salt Recovery Units, the largest pit carburizing furnace he has ever built (working dimensions of 16.5’ diameter X 15’ deep), business conditions in Europe and his dream of a manufacturing facility in the USA.
We welcome our most recent advertiser “Fredericks Company” whose banner ad can be found at the top of this page. Among other products the company offers the TelevacR and ETI vacuum measurement brands. “Fredericks’ TelevacR and ETI vacuum measurement brands offer the most innovative and proven
vacuum technology on the market including analog vacuum gauges, digital vacuum gauges, vacuum sensors, and vacuum controllers, which cover the entire pressure measurement range from atmosphere (1000 Torr) to ultra-high vacuum/UHV (10-11 Torr). Televac also offers pressure measurement up to 10,000 Torr (13 bar). Used in industries ranging from heat treat and vacuum furnaces to national labs and research and development, our vacuum technology is designed to match your needs for your vacuum system.”
Press releases from furnace builder SECO/WARWICK and Seco Vacuum Technologies are a regular occurrence and generally interesting. We have seen and published a few recently and we noticed something just today which caught our eye. It looks like one customer, a performance automotive supplier in the US bought 3 of the furnaces mentioned in recent press releases. To be exact this includes a gas nitriding furnace, a Vector high pressure gas quench furnace, a CaseMaster Evolution vacuum oil quench furnace and all peripheral equipment. While the customers’ name cannot be mentioned we can say that all of the equipment is installed and running and can be seen in these photos.
“Despite all the doom and gloom constantly in the news, how about a little good news for a change. Here at AFC-Holcroft we have been, and continue to be, inundated with work, as the photos will attest. Additionally, we have had the good fortune to be awarded some very nice orders from well-known companies this past quarter. You can see from the photo that our shop is jammed full at the moment, and plenty of work on the way to keep our employees working full steam ahead.
Shown in the photos are UBQ (oil) and UBQA (salt) batch IQ furnaces, continuous roller hearth with the ability to normalize, isothermal anneal and quench & temper, continuous mesh belt austempering line and a variety of other equipment which are in or nearing the final construction phases and will be shipping to the end-users soon. Once additional shop floorspace becomes available, the next projects in our pipeline, already processed by our various Engineering departments, will start construction – and the cycle
continues.
We have every reason to remain optimistic about the coming months and hope this provides a positive outlook for others who are wondering how manufacturing is faring right now. At AFC-Holcroft, we are bustling with activity, with a confident outlook for the future.
In our opinion the most professional manufacturers representative that we have ever run across in North America (and this includes ourselves) was Mr. Ed Boll, a long time rep who covered the Northeastern USA on behalf of companies such as SSi, AFC-Holcroft and Wirco. Ed retired just a few short years ago and his business was taken over by Mr. John Oakes of Ebco who is doing a stand up job in the area. We regret that we have not been in touch with Ed recently but we do have this photo of him doing what he enjoys the most-fishing.
We will start off with some people news, in this case Mr. Greg Huss who within the past month became a plant Manager at Paulo Heat Treating, Brazing and Metal Finishing. Greg worked for many years at Hudapack Metal Treating in Wisconsin, USA which was cofounded by his father Gary Huss. Hudapack was acquired by Thermal Process Holdings back in 2018 as you can see in the press release below. Incidentally both Paulo and Thermal Process Holdings are included on our list of the 30 largest commercial heat treaters in North America https://themonty.com/articles/largest-north-american-commercial-heat-treats-august-2020/ “November 28, 2018 – Thermal Process Holdings, Inc. (“TPH”) is pleased to announce its acquisition of Hudapack Metal Treating, Inc. (“Hudapack”), which owns and operates heat treat facilities in Elkhorn and Franklin Wisconsin. Hudapack, co-founded by Gary Huss, Charles Davis, and Earl Pack, represents the third investment in our strategy to build a leading thermal processing company focused on value-added services.”
There are few companies in the worldwide heat treatment industry, be they industry suppliers, captive heat treaters or commercial heat treaters who can say that business is good for them in 2020, however we ran across one supplier who is having a great year. ECM USA in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, USA is a division of ECM of Grenoble, France and a supplier of furnaces, in particular vacuum carburizing furnaces and they are having a good year with a number of new orders and a very high level of quoting. The photo below was taken in 2018 during an open house the company had and in this picture we see from the left; Laurent Pelissier (President), Yvan Trouillot and Dennis Beauchesne.
Our good friend Pete Batche of Emerald Steel Processing in Michigan asked if we could mention that the 4th edition of CQI-9 is finally complete and can be ordered anytime at https://www.aiag.org/ Since 2005 the heat treating standard for automotive components has been CQI-9 which covers most aspects of the heat treating process and one of the individuals who wrote the original specs is none other than Pete Batche. For his contributions he earned a place on our list of the 25 most influential people in the North American heat treating industry https://themonty.com/project/
Recently we mentioned a brand new start up commercial heat treater in Northern Ontario, Canada by the name of Salto Heat Treating Inc. The person mainly responsible for this is a fellow by the name of Chris Meheena and he can be seen in this photo.
This week we are looking forward to a press release from Italian furnace builder Meapforni about a nice order they have just received. While we await the press release we will share this photo taken at the Meapforni facilty last year which shows part of the Meapforni team along with a number of individuals from Japanese furnace builder Dowa.
To round things out for what will be a very quiet week due to holidays in North America we have this picture which dates back to 2004. The company name was Nitrion, it was based in Munich, Germany and specialized in plasma nitriding. “The Monty” worked closely with the owner who was looking to sell and the end result is that is has long been part of the Bodycote organization.
“SECO/WARWICK Group has sold 2 vacuum furnaces for an aerospace application to one client in two locations: the USA and Singapore. The Group has been delivering its products to this client for the last 10 years to such locations as Poland, Malaysia, Singapore, France and the US. Partnership and credibility built over a decade results in harmonic workflow among engineering teams regardless of the particular plant of the client, language and location. The manufacturer has been a SECO/WARWICK customer in Europe for many years, but this is their first Vector vacuum furnace ordered for a US installation.
The first furnace from this order will be used for the heat treatment of exotic electrical steels. The high-pressure gas quench vacuum furnace is a Vector with diffusion vacuum levels. Its horizontal chamber has a workload size of 24” x 24” x 36” and a 1300 lb. hearth capacity. The second furnace, also a single chamber Vector, will be used for annealing parts produced by 3D printing technology. Vector furnaces lines are used in multiple applications within the aerospace sector, including many of the most critical processes, such as heat treating turbine blades and landing gear. Vector is also in wide use in the aerospace aftermarket to maintain fleets of aircraft.”
”As the lockdown in Italy due to the Coronavirus has ended, IMG Industria Meccanica Girardello s.p.a. located near Treviso, has restarted all operations and will soon receive two identical electrically heated pit furnaces type SG 150/200 for carbonitriding processes from German furnace builder Rohde. The furnaces left the Rohde facility in Hanau, Germany just today.
The furnace load in the furnaces is supported on a special support table. The retort free hanging in the furnace housing, so that the load of the product is not supported by the retort. To ensure that the system is gas-tight, Rohde used a special bellow expansion joint, which is connected to the lower part of the retort and the support table. This enables high loads without stress on the retort material.
With this furnace type Rohde is able to manufacture tailor-made furnaces depending on the customers loads. Our largest furnace of similar design has a load of 100t and a nominal temperature of 1050°C. The furnace utilizes Nitrogen, Methanol, Methane and Air.”
Characteristics of the furnaces:
- Nominal temperature 1000°C
- Inner diameter 1500 mm
- Usable inner height 2000 mm
- Heating power 318 kW
- Load approx. 15,000 kg
For more information; http://www.rohdetherm.de
We continued to be surprised at the growth in Hot Isostatic Pressing (HIPPING) around the world. It would appear that a unit has been recently installed at a Italian company-read on; “A Hot Isostatic Press (HIP) from Quintus Technologies will enable advanced thermal spray coatings specialist Flame Spray SpA to respond to growing demand for the densification and heat treatment process as additive manufacturing (AM) increasingly takes hold in aerospace parts production.”
One of the largest in house heat treatment departments in North America is located at the FCA (Fiat Chrysler Automotive) transmission facility in Kokomo, Indiana https://themonty.com/articles/10-largest-north-american-captive-heat-treaters/ (a partial list of the furnaces at this facility from a few years back includes; 7-Three row Holcroft Pusher Furnaces, 6-Lindberg 36 X 72 X36 Batch IQ furnaces, 6-AFC 36 X 72 X 36 batch Austemper Furnaces, 3-Holcroft single row pushers, 2-Surface rotary furnaces, 2-Seco Rotary Furnaces, 4-ECM vacuum nitriding furnaces, 30-tempering furnaces and several ECM vacuum carburizing systems).
Well it would appear that 4 ECM vacuum nitriders and a really nice Aichelin washer are being auctioned off. All of these items were built between 2003 and 2006 and all of the nitriders have the same specs; 1400F Deg max temp, 910x950x1800mm load size, 2600kg max load weight. Our prediction is that all of the equipment will sell and at reasonable prices, the only real drawback being that few companies need nitriders with this sort of capacity.
