Commercial heat treater Rochester Steel Treating in Rochester, New York recently became Nadcap certified and well as achieving AS 9100D & ISO 9001:2015. RST is a full service heat treater offering carburizing, nitriding, induction hardening and vacuum hardening. We had to have a photo to go with this news item so we rooted though our files and came up with this one which we took back in 2017 showing part of the RST team standing in front of a new addition to the plant.

Longtime Rochester Steel Treating Works employees – Keith Heiden, left, technical director; Angel Bonilla, vacuum operator; Dave Kailburn, head of maintenance – stand in front of its new million-dollar vacuum processing furnace (Photo: Provided by Rochester Steel Treating Works)

We at The Monty hope you enjoy your Thanksgiving with family and friends!

Out on the US west coast, commercial heat treater Stack Metallurgical is making some very substantial investments. A local newspaper had this interesting article. “Snow may have been predicted for later in the day and it may have been cold and the crowd may have been standing in the field on Marion Street with all the excitement and suspense of children on Christmas Eve, but the immense object being hoisted into the sky Tuesday wasn’t Santa’s sleigh – it was a gift for Albany’s titanium casting industry. Stack Metallurgical, which specializes in metal works and offers heat treatment and hot isostatic pressing (HIP), has been settling into Albany. On Tuesday, President Nels Plough watched as the puzzle’s last piece was dropped in. The equipment, a hot isostatic press, arrived in Albany from Sweden and stood several stories high as crews steadied it with the help of a crane to lift up over the roof and into the building. “This is a huge deal for us,” Plough said. “It’s a game changer for our company.”

Before Stack Metallurgical’s arrival, titanium casting was outsourced to companies in Washington and California. Economic Development Manager Seth Sherry said the company’s Albany presence would mean the local metals industry could keep their business here rather than outsourcing outside of the state. The main HIP unit was tagged at about $18 million when it came before the Albany City Council in October. The cost of the entire project was expected to cost $25 million. The council approved a $745,000 loan to the company on Oct. 10.

The three pieces of the HIP were expected to be in place by Tuesday afternoon. Tuesday’s move-in day made good on a promise from Stack CEO Doug Puerta, who released a statement last year. In the statement, he said the company would invest $30 million in the city, including purchasing land, erecting a building and bringing in a $20 million HIP furnace. “We are truly delighted to bring large-scale HIP capacity to the Northwest U.S. market,” Puerta said in the release. “HIP is a complimentary service to our existing portfolio of offerings. Stack has always worked closely with its clients to make smart investments to support their metal processing needs. By expanding into HIP, we’ll be in a position to offer a really outstanding value proposition of capability, capacity, quality and service.”

“Jim Merryweather has joined Wallwork Group as Vacuum Brazing Technical Sales Engineer. Over the last two years the company has invested £2.7 million in world class vacuum brazing facilities to meet growing demand. “It is an exciting time to be joining Wallwork, they are experiencing significant orders from the aerospace sector – especially for critical hot engine parts like honeycombs, blades, vanes and more. I will be working with both UK and international clients alongside Peter Cookson our Vacuum Brazing Group Manager to help meet the challenges ahead,” Tim explained Tim has previously worked for Radshape Sheet Metal, Knight Strip Metals and VBC Group. 

Experience has been gained with both aerospace OEMs and MROs. Project involvement includes Rolls-Royce, Lockheed Martin, GE, Siemens and Reaction Engines. “Helping customers with research and development is a large part of our work in the vacuum brazing department. Fostering a close working relationship is essential for long-term aerospace programmes and Wallwork having AS9100, Nadcap and many prime approvals gives them confidence in our ability to meet their advanced technical needs. Likewise, in motorsport, we can bring top teams all the experience gained from aerospace to help them rapidly develop winning components,” Tim added.

While mainly based at the company’s Cambridge site, Tim will also operate from Manchester, Birmingham and Newcastle. He will also become a regular in the Wallwork exhibition stand team and is especially looking forward to meeting customers on their Farnborough International Airshow stand in July 2020.”

John Deere out in Waterloo, Iowa, USA suffered a small fire Monday of this week at their downtown Waterloo heat treating facility. It appears that it occurred in the ducting but luckily everybody reacted quickly and efficiently and damage was very limited. John Deere is rated as one of the 10 largest captive heat treaters in North America by “The Monty”.

Hermitage PA, November 26, 2019 – Solar Atmospheres of Western PA has completed construction of a new brazing and assembly room. Though built primarily to accommodate a large aluminum brazing project for a specific customer, the room will be used for other brazing and assembly work, as well. The temperature- and humidity-controlled room provides a clean environment for the critical assembly and alloying methods employed by Solar. All inventories of the clean components for final assemblies will be safely stored within the new space. Bob Hill, President of Solar Atmospheres of Western PA, states: “During successful development and prototype runs, our customer, along with Solar management, understood that in order to bring this critical aluminum brazing project to full production a separate braze/assembly room would be needed. We worked together with our customer to develop the best space that is in close proximity to the vacuum furnace being utilized.” For additional information about Solar Atmospheres, contact Mike Johnson at 1-855-934-3284 or [email protected], and visit us at www.solaratm.com.

March 3-5 ASM will be presenting Heat Treat Mexico 20 in Queretaro, Mexico https://www.asminternational.org/web/heat-treat-mexico/home Topics to be covered include CQI-9 for the automotive industry, NADCAP for the aerospace industry and discussions about carburizing furnaces and vacuum furnaces to name just a few. We at “The Monty” attended this event back in September 2016 and we found it to be well worthwhile-not the size of the really big shows but a very good cross section of the heat treating community in Mexico. By clicking on the Heat Treat Mexico 20 ad on this page you can find out everything you need to know about the show. We searched through our files and came up with these pictures from the event back in 2016. In the first you see Gord Montgomery and Mario Mendez who owns the largest commercial heat treater in Mexico-ETSA. In the second we see gentlemen from the two largest furnace builders in Mexico, Nutec Bickley and Mattsa.