​What you see in this photo is a largely completed, electrically heated aluminum drop bottom oven. It is being built by a US company which we weren’t aware made drop bottoms, but as it turns out they have produced quite a few over the years and the company has a very impressive track record-any guesses? More details and photos of this company later this week.

In Quakertown, PA, USA Vacu Braze recently received their GE Aviation Supplier Approval; “Vacu Braze continues to expand its capabilities for the Aerospace Industry by receiving the GE Aviation Supplier Approval for Vacuum Heat Treating. The GT193 verifies that a review has been completed of Vacu Braze’s technical resources and quality system controls used in heat treating and has found our process to be capable of satisfying certain GE Aviation requirements and specifications. Vacu Braze offers a variety of services catering to the aerospace industry. These include precision vacuum heat treatment for parts such as fasteners, bearings and bushings, weldments, and many other aircraft components. As Vacu Braze continues to expand capabilities and technical certifications, we look forward to the opportunity to provide more high-quality services to customers in all the industries we serve.” Vacu Braze is owned and run by Mr. Ralph Puerta which leads us into our next news item. Ralph’s son Doug Puerta is CEO of Stack Metallurgical Services Inc., in Portland, Oregon which is the largest commercial heat treater in the US Northwest. Monday January 27^th we at “The Monty” will be attending the grand opening of the company’s brand new HIP operation in Albany, Oregon and in the process taking a number of photos of this facility and also of the main Stack plant in Oregon. This photo shows the HIP unit being installed.

Going back to October of 2018 we had this news item about a planned new vacuum nitrider installation at Siegen Tool and Hardening  in Germany (our press release is below). The company now has two of these systems installed as you can see in the picture;  “OCTOBER 2018; Siegen Tool and Hardening to Add Rohde Vacuum Nitrider. In Siegen, Germany we see that tooling supplier and commercial heat treater Siegen tool and hardening technology GmbH is adding capacity. In the fall of 2018 this will include a ROHDE Schutzgasöfen GmbH vacuum nitriding system similar to this system which is located at commercial heat treat HTU in Mühlhofen, Germany. Siegen Tool & Hardening currently has a number of furnaces which includes vacuum hardening up to 15 bar and the ability to offer Plasma nitriding and nitrocarburizing.”

Recently it was announced that Nitrex had acquired vacuum furnace manufacturer GM Enterprises in California, USA is an acquisition which surprised and impressed many in the industry. We have a small footnote to that story. Nitrex and sister company United Process Controls (UPC) are well known around the world as one of the largest suppliers of furnace control systems. In North America UPC sells their products primarily thought independent manufacturers reps, a system which has worked very well for many years. However a number of these same reps also sell for vacuum furnace builder Ipsen which is of course a competitor to GM Enterprises. We’re not sure what the solution to this will be. From our friends at Paulo comes this press release; “Paulo is excited to announce the addition of Steve Lias to the team as Key Account Manager for the Cleveland Division. Steve has completed a month of training on the shop floor and at Corporate Headquarters in St. Louis. Steve is not new to the manufacturing world, with close to 30 years of experience selling industrial and electrical supplies nationwide. Steve commented, “I am ecstatic to start working as a Key Account Manager in 2020. Paulo Cleveland has a fantastic team with regards to their knowledge of both customer products and processing requirements. I look forward to growing the sales here, building solid relationships, and providing value to all our customers. Our new HIP unit will open up a new market this year to continue the growth trend we’ve enjoyed over several years. “William Rassieur, VP Sales, added, “I’m excited to have Steve on the team. His experience, willingness to learn, and customer focus make him a great compliment to the strong group in Cleveland. That facility has grown tremendously to support our customers which can only come from strong relationships. I know Steve will reinforce those existing relationships and forge new ones to take us to our strategic goals. “Founded in 1943, Paulo is one of the largest providers of thermal processing and metal finishing solutions in North America. Headquartered in St. Louis, Paulo operates six divisions servicing the Midwest, Great Lakes, and Southeast regions of the United States and northern Mexico.”

Furnace and oven builder DELTA H started up a Dual Chamber Aerospace Heat Treat (DCAHTTM) at AAR Corp., at Indianapolis International Airport. AAR is a leading provider of aviation services to commercial airlines and governments worldwide. At its Indianapolis MRO facility it performs heavy maintenance with a focus on the Boeing 737.

We were recently asked to add a used vacuum furnace to our list of available Used Vacuum Furnaces For Sale https://themonty.com/vacuum-furnaces/ As part of the listing we received the photo below. We will apologize right up front for our rather warped sense of humor but it did strike us as rather humorous. The furnace was ordered new in August of 1991, received December of the same year, installed January of 1992 with the first load processed January 28th of 1992. Exactly 12 days later a furnace loader managed to run a fork lift through the hot zone.

Nickel Pricing remains fairy constant which should bring joy to many heat treaters hearts-the graph below shows pricing for the past year. Nickel as most people know is the largest factor in price fluctuations for all fabricated and cast alloy furnace components and fixturing.

Retech Systems LLC. Last year the Retech Division of Furnace Builder SECO/WARWICK went through a number of changes which we mentioned on this site. We came across this report from last week (it has been abbreviated) which explains the changes and where the company stands now-the title was “A Sound Turnaround”. “Since 1963, Retech Systems LLC has been a global leader in the supply of metallurgical processing equipment and, today, is the world’s leading supplier of Electron Beam (EB) and Plasma (PAM) Cold Hearth furnaces for melting and refining titanium and titanium alloys. In 2011, Retech became a part of the SECO/ WARWICK group of companies. Its expertise includes end-to-end solutions in several categories: vacuum heat treatment; atmosphere and aluminum thermal processing; controlled atmosphere brazing of aluminum heat exchangers; and vacuum metallurgy. The SECO/WARWICK Group has 10 companies located on three continents with customers in nearly 70 countries, and production facilities in Poland, the United States, India, and China. Last year, Retech Systems announced that much of the manufacturing and assembly work previously done in the company’s home office in Ukiah, California will be transferred to SECO/WARWICK’s facilities in Świebodzin, Poland, thus allowing it to be better-positioned to support both large capital projects, while also satisfying the regular, daily customer service needs that its clients demand and deserve. Currently, Managing Director Earl Good reports that Retech is also working on a long-term lease for a new office space and R&D facilities in the Buffalo, New York area.

“We’ve decreased the size of our manufacturing facility in Ukiah,” Good continues. “But we’ll continue to maintain the office out in Ukiah; there are a lot of good people there with technical knowhow and it’s important that we maintain that. We have increased the cooperation with the SECO Group, our owners, over in Poland; they have very good facilities, as far as manufacturing and assembly. We have a very skilled workforce over in Poland that we can utilize, but we also have options to go to other locations, and the Buffalo facility will provide options to do some manufacturing and assembly here in the U.S., as well. Going forward, Good maintains that Retech Systems has a “very promising proposal backlog that will help us through the next couple of years. There’s a lot to be optimistic about,” he adds. “We continue to look for opportunities to create new technologies that the market wants and needs. Business has gone pretty well and we will have over $60 million in new capital equipment and combined after-market orders, this year.”

And to round things out we reached back into our archives and came up with this picture taken back in 2007. In it we see Lone Star Heat Treat in Houston, Texas, USA one of the largest commercial heat treaters in Texas. As you can see in this picture heat treating in Texas is not your typical heat treating.

Furnace manufacturer Abbott Furnace in St. Mary’s, PA, USA sent us these two press releases about new furnace orders.

Abbott Furnace Receives Order For Sintering Furnace Scheduled For Delivery Q2 2020

“St. Mary’s, PA:  Abbott Furnace Company is proud to announce that a company that specializes in manufacturing high volume, ferrous-based powdered metal components in the automotive, lawn and garden, agricultural, and industrial markets has placed an order with Abbott Furnace Company for an electrically heated continuous belt sintering furnace to be delivered in the 2^nd quarter of 2020. Abbott Furnace will design, manufacture and install the sintering furnace that is rated at 2,150° F and also includes the unique Abbott Varicool Cooling System. This will be the 36^th furnace we have supplied to this customer. We have been able to help them meet their customers’ requirements by suppling equipment that allows them to sinter harden cost effectively and in spec day in and day out.”

Abbott Furnace Receives Order For Soft Magnetic Alloy Processing Furnace Scheduled For Delivery Q2 2020

“St. Mary’s, PA:  Abbott Furnace Company is proud to announce that a manufacturer in the powder metal industry providing components to the metals and mining market has given Abbott Furnace in St. Marys, PA an order for an electrically heated continuous belt soft magnetic alloy processing furnace shipping in the 2^nd quarter of 2020. The furnace has a maximum temperature of 1850° F in an air, nitrogen or steam atmosphere and includes a Delube chamber, oxidation chamber, water-jacketed cooling chamber and a Thermostack thermal oxidizer.  The furnace will be controlled through an Allen Bradley Micrologix PLC.

Abbott Furnace co. continues to support the Powdered Metal business by developing equipment to meet their needs. This furnace design will help the P/M industry to grow in the electrification segment of the market. About Abbott Furnace; Abbott Furnace is an industrial furnace manufacturer with 35 years of experience designing and producing some of the industry’s most reliable and high performing industrial continuous process furnaces.  Abbott is a leading producer of industrial sintering furnaces, annealing furnaces, tempering furnaces, brazing furnaces, heat treat furnaces, steam treat furnaces, industrial ovens, CAB furnaces, High-Temperature Furnaces and other specialty furnace products. Abbott Furnace is a privately owned company located in St. Marys, Pennsylvania.  Abbott furnaces are proudly manufactured in the USA.”

In Columbus, Indiana, USA fastener manufacture and captive heat treater Rightway has plans on expanding. During a meeting with Columbus City Council earlier this week the company was granted a tax abatement which will help the company expand, add 9 new jobs in 2020 and add three new coating lines and another furnace. Currently the company operates 5 mesh belt lines. This is a brief history of the company; “Rightway Fasteners, Inc began as Indiana Metal Coatings in 1991, then changed its name the Rightway Fasteners, Inc (RFI) in 1995, and has continued to grow year after year since that time. RFI was established as a joint venture in the US from four well established Japanese owned companies; Meidoh Co. Ltd, Nagoya Dacro, Toyota Tsusho America, and Sannohashi.  In 2003, RFI expanded its product line by establishing another joint venture. Owari Seiki (OSR) which manufactures screws and nuts. RFI now specializes in manufacturing specialty bolts and supplying a large variety of nuts and screws to some of the largest and most reputable automobile companies in the world. RFI also specializes in applying surface treatment such as zinc plating and Geomet coatings.”

​The Bodycote location in South Windsor, CT just commissioned this brand new bottom load vacuum furnace (which looks like an Ipsen to us).  The furnace is rated for +/- 10F. The South Windsor plant carries Nadcap, AS9100 and ITAR to support a diverse group of Aerospace and Defense manufacturers and specializes in vacuum brazing & vacuum heat treating. This is quite typical of all captive and commercial heat treaters in the US Northeast, heavily dependant upon the aerospace, defense and to a lesser degree medical industries.

One of the services we offer at “The Monty” is used equipment appraisals. Send us a brief description of what you have available along with a few photos and we will happily provide you with an idea about what your equipment is worth on the used market and roughly how long it will take to sell. Why just yesterday we had a company in North Carolina, USA ask us what this continuous furnace was worth-needless to say we had to say scrap value and that is it.

We’re not going to repeat yet again how the HIP process seems to be gathering momentum but it does seem like every time we turn around we have another press release about a new HIP installation. In this case this press release is from Spain and we know absolutely nothing about the company beyond the fact that their target market is similar to everybody else’s-the aerospace and medical industries. Interesting that the company already has 3 locations in the US-Oregon, Ohio and Mississippi to be exact;

“We are pleased to submit a brief description of Isostatic Toll Services Bilbao SL, whose new plant in Abanto‐Zierbena (Biscay, Basque Country) will be officially opened on 29th January. ITS Bilbao (“Isostatic Toll Services Bilbao SL”) was founded in Autumn 2018 and the first operational production cycle was performed in October 2019. It is the most modern and capable HIP factory in Southern Europe. ITS Bilbao will support and help boost high‐tech Aviation and Medical implant manufacturing Industry in the region. Isostatic Toll Services Bilbao SL (ITS Bilbao) is an entrepreneurial initiative of 5 individuals of 4  different nationalities = USA, Italy, Belgium and Australia, each with a strong current operational  activity in related businesses: forging, toll HIP facility, HIP unit design and assembly, advanced  materials production.  The European Holding, ITS Europe SA, is located in Luxembourg and will solely control the Bilbao  operations.  ITS Bilbao is the sister company of 3 similar HIP Toll Center in USA, already approved by NADCAP  and from relevant jet engines manufactures.  The operation competence is a direct fertilization from the American Toll Services Centers, while the  technology is provided by AIP Inc, supplier of the HIP units, also shareholder in ITS Bilbao.     As such, AIP is currently the only player in the Western World with relevant direct operation  activities both in Fabrication and Operations of HIP units. ”