“Gasbarre Thermal Processing Systems recently rebuilt and shipped a 24-inch, four zone continuous mesh belt brazing furnace for an automotive parts supplier in Mexico.  The rebuild included a new 330 stainless steel muffle, new silicon carbide heating elements, new cooling sections, and new furnace controls to meet CQI-9 requirements.  The CQI-9 controls package includes data acquisition, preventative maintenance alerts, remote connectivity, furnace parameter trending, and temperature deviation alarms. Gasbarre was chosen as a partner for their brazing expertise, unique controls package, and ongoing service and support of the customer in Mexico.

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.

For more information on how Gasbarre Thermal Processing Systems can manufacture custom-engineered heat treating equipment solutions for your specific thermal heating requirements, contact Bill Gasbarre at (814) 590-6282 or via email at [email protected]. You can also visit our website at www.gasbarre.com and find us on LinkedIn (Gasbarre Products Inc.), Twitter (@gasproinc), and Facebook (Gasbarre Products Inc.).

For Mexico contact Humberto Bastidas at 449 256 40 08 or via email at [email protected]“

Located in Michigan, USA Pete Callert has been a manufacturers rep serving the heat treat industry since 1995. While he started off selling new furnaces and related heat treating equipment his career has taken a rather interesting twist in that now he reps for several commercial heat treaters-a very unique position. For a number of years he was exclusively selling for Specialty Steel Treating in Michigan and Connecticut, a company which recently made our list of the 30 largest commercial heat treaters in North America https://themonty.com/articles/largest-north-american-commercial-heat-treats-august-2020/ He recently rebranded his company and it now goes under the name Heat Tek Reps and added two other commercial heat treaters to his list of companies he reps for. One is Cooper Heat Treat in the Detroit area for which he sells their FNC services, the other is Crio located in Mexico which has 3 locations. As we mentioned Pete has created quite a unique business.

heattekreps.com

Well yet another industry trade show bites the dust as you can see in the press release further down about Titanium USA 2020 which was to be held in Chicago in October being cancelled. This means that the only remaining heat treat industry related show for 2020 that we are familiar with is Furnaces North America to be held in Louisville, Kentucky, USA starting September 30^th. It is a great show and we look forward to it, however it would appear that the organisers, Metal Treating Institute are “testing the waters” on the event. Last week we as a past attendee of the show received an e mail from MTI asking if we could answer a 1 question survey about whether we would be attending the event this year. We would assume that the response will determine if this goes ahead. “As many of you may know, Illinois Governor Pritzker introduced a five-phased plan to reopen Illinois businesses.  As it reads, the plan specifically states that conventions are included in phase 5 of the plan. The conditions that must be met for the implementation of phase 5 feature either the availability of a vaccine for the COVID 19 virus or a highly effective treatment protocol, neither of which are expected to occur in the coming months. In light of these challenging circumstances, TITANIUM USA 2020 scheduled for this October in Chicago had to be cancelled.”  

“Wisconsin Oven is pleased to announce the shipment of two (2) natural gas, in-direct fire, two zone conveyor ovens. These ovens will be used in the manufacturing process of electric utility equipment. The maximum operating temperature of the oven is 325° F and has a minimum operating temperature at 60° F. There are two work zone chambers the first chamber has dimensions of 35’0″ wide x 6’4″ long x 4’2″ high. The second camber has work dimensions of 35’0″ wide x 12’4″ long x 4’2″ high. These ovens can heat 10,240 of composite materials.

“These two zone conveyor ovens are identical. They are equipped with Wisconsin Oven Corporation’s patented high efficiency Expandable Surface™ design. They will be used to heat composite materials that will be used in the manufacturing process of electrical utility equipment.” – Tom Trueman, Senior Application Engineer.”

The Ipsen Service Team is committed to supporting customers
during the COVID-19 pandemic with both on-site and remote assistance to keep critical heat-treating equipment operational.
Ipsen continues to provide advanced aftermarket support, including instrument calibrations and temperature uniformity surveys (TUS) that adhere to various industry standards, such as Nadcap, AMS2750E, AMS2769C, and MedAccred. Ipsen provides calibration and TUS services for the aerospace & defense, medical device, automotive, and energy industries to help ensure their equipment remains in compliance.

The Ipsen Customer Service Team is the largest in the industry, with Regional Service Managers and Field Service Engineers able to provide immediate local support. Ipsen’s well-trained and experienced technicians provide an extensive range of services, including installation or relocation of equipment, start-up & testing, furnace evaluations & repair, refurbishments, computer & controls upgrades, spare parts, training, and technical support. In accordance with government requirements, Ipsen is following all necessary safety protocols, including wearing personal protective equipment, maintaining social distancing, limiting face-to-face contact, and increasing the use of remote assistance where possible. Visit www.ipsenusa.com/ICS, or call 1-844-GO-IPSEN for more information.

“Super Systems, Inc. recently completed a nitrogen-methanol controls upgrade for a continuous furnace line at Liberty Wire in Johnstown, PA.

The scope of the project included a new control system and panel for a continuous annealing furnace line for processing coiled wire products.  The SSI Matrix control system was incorporated to control the automated flow and mixing of the process gases.  SSI HMI and eFlo 2.0 meters were also integrated to provide Liberty with the latest in hardware, software and communications technology.

Mike Cassidy, the Liberty Wire Controls Analyst, led the installation with SSI Project Engineers.  Mike was kind enough to offer comments on the process … “I’m very pleased with SSI and the new system.  Can’t think of any aspect of the whole deal that I could find fault with or complain about … they are top notch.  I’m looking forward to working with them in the future.  Thanks for everything.”

Liberty Wire Johnstown produces and provides a wide variety of steel wire and rod products for industry.  The company focuses on market segments where metallurgical quality is the differentiating factor.  Their customers are primarily in the transportation and construction industry segments, but also supplies products for capital goods, energy and consumer products.  For more information about Liberty Wire, visit www.libertyhousegroup.com

Super Systems Inc., based in Cincinnati, Ohio, has been developing and manufacturing products for the thermal processing industry since 1995. SSi’s products include probes, analyzers, flow meters, controllers, software solutions and engineered systems. With over 100 years of combined experience, SSi continues to satisfy industry demands with innovative technology, enabling customers to be more efficient and to produce higher quality products. For more information on SSi’s capabilities, visit www.supersystems.com.”

Wednesday, June 10, 2020 a well publicized auction was held in Canon City, Colorado, USS which featured a nice Abar Ipsen vacuum furnace which came out of a Parker Hannifin facility.  The system appeared to be in good shape and well maintained, the only real drawbacks were the age and the size-small (the complete description is below). We were quite surprised to see that the final sale price was $91,000 USD. While we have no idea who the buyer was we can say without a shadow of a doubt that it was an end user rather than a used equipment dealer.

“Located in Canon City, CO — Abar Ipsen HR26x36 vacuum heat treating oven with ancillary pumps and controls recently running at a parker hannifin location in 2019, 24″ wide x 18″ high x 36″ deep work zone, 16″ varian pump, stokes 212 roughing pump, 412 booster pump, updated controls, fully supported by mfg(new replacement approx $500,000-600,000).”

Hot Isostatic Pressing (Hipping) has been much in the news the last couple of years with a number of large systems installed around the world. But what the heck do you put in them? Launcher is a company in Brooklyn, NY, USA who is developing a rocket to deliver small satellites into orbit. One of the components in their systems is a 3D printed engine combustion chamber which as part of the heat treatment process is processed in a Quintus HIP system. In this case the company doing the processing is none other than our friends at Accurate Brazing Corp., down in South Carolina and these photos show the part and the Quintus system.

According to this press release commercial heat treater Kuczma in Poland will be installing a SECO/WARWICK vacuum furnace; “Vector is the most popular vacuum technology for heat treatment selected by commercial plants worldwide. This vacuum furnace is a very efficient and versatile system used for heat treating many types of materials and metal alloys. Its functionality includes gas hardening and tempering, annealing, brazing and degassing. This Vector model – a vacuum furnace equipped with 1.5 bar gas quenching pressure — will significantly increase the capacity of the Kuczma Hardening Plant and will enable it to process parts with dimensions up to 600x600x900 mm. This will be the first SECO/WARWICK furnace operated by the Kuczma Hardening Plant. Commercial heat treaters around the world, including Poland, select SECO/WARWICK technologies for many reasons, most importantly for their versatility, reliability and precision.”