Last week, April 29^th to be exact we had a news item entitled “Unusual Heat Treat Photos”. Included in this offering was a picture of the largest vacuum furnace we have ever personally seen. Vacuum furnace builder Ipsen sent us this photo last week which is rather cool. In the foreground we see a pretty standard sized “Titan” vacuum furnace, in the background we see a furnace currently under construction which dwarfs it. Unfortunately except for this photo no other information can be released.

“Advanced Heat Treat Corp. (AHT) has expanded capacity for Nadcap work at its corporate office and service center located in Waterloo, Iowa. Having added gas nitriding to its Nadcap® accreditation (merit status) this past winter, AHT now offers both Nadcap-accredited gas nitriding and ion nitriding. All AHT sites remain open during the COVID-19 pandemic to serve customers in critical markets such as aerospace, defense, agriculture and health care. 

Established in 1981, AHT is a recognized global leader in providing heat treat services and metallurgical solutions. Between locations in Alabama, Iowa and Michigan, AHT offers over 20 surface treatments including UltraGlow® Ion/Gas Nitriding and Nitrocarburizing, UltraOx®, UltraGlow Induction, carburizing, quench & temper and more. AHT had record-breaking sales last year. Approaching its 40^th year, the company credits its success to its loyal employees (42% have been at AHT for over 10 years) and a focus on “exceeding customers’ expectations.”

This photo shows the team at the Cullman, Alabama, USA plant standing in front of one on the company’s largest nitriding units. This furnace is large enough to hold two small cars at the same time.

“With over 70 years of experience, Ipsen has perfected our hot zone design to manufacture the highest quality vacuum furnaces with heating elements that last longer and perform better than the competition. Ipsen builds and ships hundreds of hot zones per year and is trusted by customers with critical needs in the aerospace, medical, energy and defense industries. When your business is too important to depend on untested solutions, we are the craftsmen you can count on.”

“Cherry Valley, ILLINOIS (April 29, 2020) – Ipsen is pleased to announce the receipt of an order for two TITAN^® H6 2-bar vacuum furnaces this week from a rapidly emerging global automotive component manufacturer with locations in the United States and Asia. 

“Despite general market conditions at the present time, we are seeing many forward-looking manufacturers continuing to invest in efficient, high performance systems for the future.” Ipsen USA President and CEO Patrick McKenna said.

The customer awarded Ipsen this order as part of a series of eight furnaces – all provided by Ipsen – over the last two years. Ipsen’s TITAN^® was the customer’s preferred choice for this series due to the inherent process flexibility and ease of installation anywhere in the world, as well as the local regional support provided by Ipsen’s sales and service teams in both the US and Asia. Learn more about Ipsen’s TITAN^® product line here: https://www.ipsenusa.com/products/vacuum-furnaces/titan”  

“Sintavia, LLC, a leading Aerospace & Defense additive manufacturer, announced today that it had achieved National Aerospace and Defense Contractors Accreditation Program (Nadcap) approval for heat treatment at both its Hollywood, Florida, and Davie, Florida, locations. Sintavia is the only company in the world with Nadcap approvals for laser additive manufacturing, electron beam additive manufacturing, and in-house heat treatment.

“Since its founding, Sintavia has always defined itself as the quality leader for Aerospace & Defense additive manufacturing,” said Brian Neff, Sintavia’s Chief Executive Officer. “Nadcap approval for our internal heat treatment capabilities is not only a continuation of this focus, but also will allow Sintavia to provide higher quality production parts more quickly to its customers. Moreover, we are proud of the fact that we are the first manufacturer anywhere in the world to achieve these quality accreditations.”

The Nadcap accreditation for heat treatment includes nickel and aluminum alloys, and the initial approval is good through July 31, 2021. In addition to Nadcap approvals for heat treatment and additive manufacturing, the company also holds Nadcap approvals for non-destructive testing and chemical processing through its wholly-owned subsidiary, QC Laboratories, Inc. In the coming months, the company plans also to pursue Nadcap approval for its in-house metallurgical and mechanical testing laboratory, located in Davie, Florida, which is already ISO 17025-certified.

About Sintavia; Sintavia is the global leader for metal additive manufacturing in support of the Aerospace & Defense industry. With high-speed printers co-located alongside precision post processing equipment, a full complement of mechanical testing equipment, and a full metallurgical and powder laboratory, Sintavia is able to optimize parameters, serially manufacture, and audit quality parts for its Aerospace & Defense customers. Sintavia is committed to the highest quality standards in the industry, and holds multiple Nadcap accreditations, as well as AS9100 Rev. D and ISO17025 certifications.”

Over the years we at “The Monty” have been fortunate enough to see some of the most memorable heat treatment installations in the world. Today we feature a few which are truly memorable.

Solar Atmospheres of Western, PA has the largest horizontal vacuum furnace we have ever seen anywhere on the planet. In this photo we see Bill Jones, Owner of the company and Gord Montgomery standing inside this 48′ long monster when it first went into production.

While this is an impressive photo it is nothing like seeing it in person. This picture was taken at a commercial heat treater in northern Italy by the name of Grupo TTN and what you are looking at are the deepest pit gas nitriding furnaces we have ever seen. As a matter of fact they are so unique that Boeing sent work to this plant as part of a Nasa program to heat treat components for fuel tanks for rockets. If we remember correctly the pit is designed to handle pit furnaces 80′ deep.

What you are looking at is probably the largest single location commercial heat treater in the world. SHU, in Ulm, Germany has over 500 employees in a single location which features just about every type of heat treating known to mankind. All the buildings in the aerial view are part of SHU.

While we used this photo just a few days ago, it has to be included in a list of the “biggest”. This is the largest batch IQ furnace in the world with salt quenching and it is located at Applied Process in Oshkosh, WI., USA.

This is certainly the largest pit carburizing furnace we have ever personally seen. Located at a company by the name of REESE in Bochum, Germany it can handle parts 17′ in diameter, 17′ high and loads of up to 50 tons.

“The Industrial Heating Equipment Association (IHEA) recently announced its 2020-2021 Board of Directors and Executive Officers. The new executive officers are Scott Bishop of Alabama Power Company as president, Jeff Valuck of Surface Combustion as vice president and Brian Kelly of Honeywell Thermal Solutions as treasurer. Bishop has served as IRED chairman, presented at numerous workshops and seminars, and provided key support in the recent revision of the Infrared Process Heating Handbook for Industrial Applications. Michael Stowe of Advanced Energy assumes the role of past president. “It is an honor to serve as IHEA’s president for the 2020-2021 term,” Bishop said. “I look forward to continuing the great work IHEA has done for more than 90 years. During this unprecedented time I would like to encourage our members to be proactive in finding ways to better serve our industry and make an impact.”

IHEA also welcomed new board member Alberto Cantu of Nutec Bickley. Cantu has been involved with IHEA since 2011 and participates on the Safety Standards and Codes Committee. Continuing their service on the IHEA Board of Directors for 2020-2021: Gary Berwick, Dry Coolers, Bob Fincken, Super Systems Inc.; Doug Glenn, Heat Treat Today; Francis Liebens, SOLO Swiss Group; Daniel Llaguno, Nutec Bickley; John Podach, Fostoria Process Equipment, a div. of TPI Corp.; and John Stanley, Karl Dungs Inc.”

We are looking forward to an interview with Mr. Bill Disler, CEO of furnace manufacturer AFC-Holcroft later on this week. Bill will be telling us about current market conditions, where the company is going, new products and giving us some interesting insights into where the industry might be going. Bill joins a long list of some of the most prominent individuals in the worldwide heat treatment industry who have been interviewed by “The Monty”  https://themonty.com/articles-interviews/#

Today Monday, April 27/2020 “The Monty” will start off our Monday Morning Briefing with heat treatment news from the UK. Mike Long of Vacuum & Atmosphere Services Ltd., tell us about how captive heat treater Krohne UK will be installing the largest diffusion pumped vacuum furnace in the UK. Mike also tells us about the health of the heat treatment industry in the UK and how they are coping with COVID-19;

“Vacuum & Atmosphere Services Ltd, despite the current crisis, have remained open for business for ‘essential’ industries only. Having ‘furloughed’ 70% of our staff, we still operate with 10 Engineers and 2 Admin staff. We have maintained a healthy level of business. A majority of projects have been put on hold following the UK lockdown, but several projects, for essential businesses still go ahead. Currently we are manufacturing 1 control panel and 2 new control systems, all with Allen Bradley PLC’s and with our new VCS+ version II control system. We also have 4 graphite hot zones in build, all to be delivered by end of May. Our emergency service visit business, is very busy, with Engineers travelling daily. Next week we start the decommissioning and relocation of a top loading vacuum furnace. Once installed VAS will then fully commission and support the process of achieving NADCAP accreditation. With no hotels or accommodation available our Engineers are working long hours due to travelling. All Engineers must carry travel documents, from both VAS and the customer.

Our sister companies Vacuum Pump Services Ltd (VPS) and VPS (North) remain open, again only supporting essential industries. Both VPS companies are offering on site and off site pump repairs and servicing. These new businesses were thriving before the crisis and again they are maintaining a healthy level of business, with limited staff. Due to the current crisis, the opening of VPS (Midlands) has been delayed until the end of 2020. Our Spares department also remains open and with great support from our suppliers, we are helping keep our essential industry customers in production.

The most exciting news we have is that in the May and June we take delivery of 4 new furnaces, 2 vacuum furnaces and 2 large drying ovens. Krohne UK will take delivery of the largest diffusion pumped vacuum furnace in the UK. It will be an all molybdenum hot zone with 6 bar quench. 

At this troubled time, VAS are not only busy supporting essential industries, we are busy planning for the return of our employees and for the future all of our businesses. Training courses are being planned for our Engineers, ‘post’ COVID 19 sales strategy implemented, new sales office being built, new computer system installed (by our own Software Engineers) and new stores system in build. Whilst sales are currently very low at this time, there is reason to be optimistic and we are confident all our staff will return in the coming weeks. Finally VAS, VPS and VPS (North) have all agreed to raise funds for our amazing NHS and its tremendous staff. We will donating 5% of all spares and service orders between now and December 31^st to the NHS.

Largest North American Commercial Heat Treaters-Solar Atmospheres. Our upcoming list of the largest North American heat treaters will include in the top 10 Solar Atmospheres. Bill Jones, founder and owner of the company is known as a very open individual by all who know him so it is no surprise that when we approached him about the size of the company he very obligingly provided very complete details about the size of the company. This is a brief summary, more details will be forthcoming. “Solar has five heat treat plants, two in Souderton, Pa., one in Hermitage, Pa.,  one in Fontana, Calif., and one in Greenville, S.C. Total sales in 2019 $61.2 million USD. Employment is 220 employees or $280,000 per, generating solid operating profits.”

Auto makers General Motors Co., , Ford Motor Co., and Toyota Motor Corp., are all making plans to open some or all of their North American plants by early to mid May. A major Canadian auto parts supplier confirmed to us that they have restarted some of their furnaces and all will be in production by mid May but what will these companies be returning to? ALG, a subsidiary of TrueCar is forecasting a worst case scenario of a 34%-plus slump in vehicle sales this year in the U.S. but says the probable outcome is a drop of 23%. This would mean total vehicle sales of 13.2 million vehicles as opposed to 17,047,725 units shipped in 2019. While other forecasts differ slightly all agree that auto sales will fall dramatically this year in every area of the world. Think about that decline for a moment. A 23% drop means that for the foreseeable future there will be that much excess capacity in the batch IQ furnaces, continuous furnaces, vacuum carburizing systems and pusher lines serving the automotive market. Now that is a scary number.

Remember Friday we had a news item about a fire at S.M Engineering & Heat Treating in Massachusetts? Well news reports say that the fire was accidental and that it started in a furnace which tells us exactly nothing; “North Attleboro — A two-alarm blaze that broke out early Wednesday morning at S.M. Engineering & Heat Treating was accidental but the exact cause remains under investigation, Fire Chief Chris Coleman said. Investigators are trying to determine whether a machine at the company on Chestnut Street malfunctioned. Workers left the building before smoke was seen about 1 a.m. by firefighters returning from a separate alarm, Coleman said. The fire was contained to a furnace that contained oil and salt that is part of the manufacturing process, he said.”

In East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, USA we see a small heat treat is for sale. R & R Heat Treating is a fairly small commercial heat treater who has been in business since 1985. The current owner has decided it is not for him and consequently the company has been for sale for a number of months. From what we can tell it is nothing fancy but profitable with a loyal customer base. If you would like to speak with the owner just let us know. Who is Jim Moss and why is he building a heat treat? Out in the US Midwest a fellow by the name of Jim Moss is in the process of setting up a commercial heat treat. From these photos it would appear that the first furnace will be a car bottom.

We leave you with this final photo showing heat treating during COVID-19. This photo is from commercial heat treater Themi Lyon, one of the largest commercial heat treaters in France and a real fan of Nitrex we are assuming.