Going back almost exactly one year we asked Ben Gasbarre, of US furnace manufacturer Gasbarre if he could confirm rumors that his company was getting the nitriding business, his answer is further down. Now we have this photo of a completed Gasbarre unit being shipped. We are not sure who end customer is although we do know that Contour Hardening in Indianapolis ordered a system some time back;
“2018 POSTING; Gord, We have a number of exciting things happening at Gasbarre, which will be formally introduced in the coming weeks. We’ve been going through a rebranding process, not only for our furnace group, but the entire Gasbarre corporation. We gave a taste of that at this year’s FNA show (attached is a picture of our booth). We’ve added automation to our list of products. And yes, we’ve also added gas nitriding equipment to our list of thermal processing products. We’ve been working on the design for quite some time with the plan to roll it out at FNA. We were running ahead of schedule and actually put one in our backlog prior to the show, so we aren’t “getting in the business”. We are in it! Our organization at Gasbarre has been evolving, and we have a lot of great people making this all possible. You’ll be hearing more from us in the next few weeks!”
We are taking the opportunity to see a few heat treaters and industry suppliers over the course of the next few days. One of the first is commercial heat treaters Troll Haertechnik in Waldaschaff Germany. Founded almost 30 years ago by a man with a vision, Mr. Klauus Schorowsky, the company has thrived by specializing in one process only, gas nitriding and now has almost 30 employees. Last year the firm processed almost 2,000 tons of nitrided material through 7 pit gas nitriders, all supplied by Rohde furnaces of Hanau, Germany (by the way the largest has working dimensions of 2.5 meters in depth X 1.6 meters in diameter. In these pictures you see Mr. Klaus Schorowsky and Mr. Joern Rohde.
We mentioned Monday how experienced new furnace fellow Michael Cousin had parted ways with furnace builder Diablo. Apparently Mike is looking for another position I think the industry. If you would like to see his resume please let Jordan Montgomery know [email protected]
We regret to inform you that Mike Tristano has passed away over this past weekend. Mike worked for companies such as; Harris Metals located in Wisconsin and Lindberg Heat Treating. Below we have some comments that were sent to us. We will post the full obituary later this week.
“I am saddened to inform the heat treating community that Mike Tristano passed away over the weekend. Mike has been a well respected leader in the heat treatment of gears. He led the team of Harris Metals located in Racine, Wisconsin. When Lindberg Heat Treating acquired Harris Metals, Mike remained to be the “go to” leader. Then when Lindberg Heat Treating was acquired by Bodycote, in 2000, the press quench department in Harris Metals was transferred to the Bodycote plant in New Berlin, Wisconsin. Mike was the key leader in the transfer of seven Gleason press quench units to New Berlin. Mike retired in 2004 looking forward to spending quality time with his wife Diane and his grandchildren.
Ipsen, Kleve, Germany. As one of the largest furnace builders in the world we would have to assume that the company needs no introduction. Having said that we at “The Monty” have never had the chance to see the German headquarters of the company which is located in Kleve, Germany-last week we remedied that. Overall Ipsen has 800-900 employees located in several locations of which roughly 200 are in the Rockford, IL, USA plant and 350 in Kleve. The plant in Kleve was established in 1957 and currently occupies over 11,500 square meters in several different buildings. Structurally it is divided into 3 groups; Vacuum Products, Atmosphere (Batch) and Atmosphere (Continuous)-it is interesting that generally the product mix is roughly 50/50 between atmosphere equipment and vacuum equipment but this varies from year to year. If you want a bit of trivia we will add that since 1990 Ipsen has produced over 10,000 furnaces and since 1948 over 20,000. We have a number of photos of the plant, these will get us started.
Left to right; Michael Simon, Gord Montgomery, Bora Ozkan, Olivier Obladen
Mark Debruin New Plant Manager at Certified Heat Treat in Ohio; “Todd McDonald, CEO TPH, is pleased to announce the appointment of Mark DeBruin as Plant Manager of Certified Heat Treating, a commercial heat-treating operation located in Springfield, Ohio. Mark is a degreed Metallurgical Engineer and certified Six Sigma quality professional with extensive experiences that includes thermal processing and machining of metals. Mark has held a variety of positions including Technical Director, Operations Manager, Plant Manager and General Manager within the steel and iron foundry industry and induction furnace industry. Mark has a focus on continuous improvement and expertise in TS-16949 and ISO 9000 quality management systems. Mark will report to Ken Robinette, Regional Vice President, supporting the growth of Thermal Process Holdings commitment to customer satisfaction, employee engagement and performance excellence. About Thermal Process Holdings, Inc; Thermal Process Holdings was formed by Calvert Street Capital Partners and John Hubbard (former CEO of Bodycote, PLC) to pursue a buy-and-build strategy in the thermal processing industry. The team has a stated goal to build a diversified, professionally-managed thermal processing business generating over $100 million of revenue. TPH currently owns and operates four businesses: Diamond Heat Treat, based in Rockford, IL; Certified Heat Treating, based in Springfield, OH; Hudapack Metal Treating, based in Elkhorn and Franklin, WI; and P&L Heat Treating, based in Youngstown, OH. TPH is actively seeking other add-on acquisition opportunities.”
Also in people news we hear that Michael Cousin who has worked on the new equipment side of things with companies such as AFC-Holcroft and Ipsen just parted ways with furnace builder Diablo Furnaces in the Rockford, IL area. The Heat Treat 2019 Exhibition, Detroit, Michigan, USA October 15th-17th is concluded and we understand that attendance was quite similar to their previous show, back in 2017. This show had a total of 5,201 attending which included 2,135 on the heat treat side of the show and 3,066 on the AGMA side. This meant a total of 195 exhibiting companies over 335 booth spaces. Our thought is that the shear size of the hall made it appear that there was less people at this event than there actually were.
Solar Manufacturing New Facility; “Solar Manufacturing Inc. commemorated the opening of a new, 59,000 square foot plant with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on October 24th. The company, located at 1500 East Clymer Avenue in Sellersville, Bucks County is the first business to build in the newly established Sellersville Business Campus. On hand to celebrate were a number of Bucks County notables, including Thomas C. Hufnagle, mayor of Sellersville Borough; Mary Smithson, chair of the Bucks County Industrial
Development Authority; and Robert G. Loughery, chairman of the Bucks County Board of Commissioners. Building on two of the six lots now occupying land vacated by AMETEK, Solar Manufacturing owners William and Myrtle Jones were keen to breathe new life into the community after AMETEK and its 1500 employees left the area in 2008. “It is important that we invest in our communities,” explained William Jones. “When AMETEK left, they left more than a couple of vacant lots. It’s our goal to grow and support the local economy.” Currently employing 55 people, Solar Manufacturing aims to increase that number as business grows.” In the photo below we see from the left; “Jerry Gorski, president of Gorski Construction; Myrtle Jones, owner of Solar Manufacturing, Inc.; William Jones; owner of Solar Manufacturing; Thomas C. Hufnagle, mayor of Sellersville Borough; Mary Smithson, chair of the Bucks County Industrial Development Authority; Robert G. Loughery, chairman of the Bucks County Board of Commissioners.”
Remember this news item about Dan McCurdy of Bodycote from roughly a week ago? Well people must really, really like Dan or they just wanted to see him leave the industry-this news items received hundreds of thousands of views and generated pages of “likes on linkedin”, it really was quite impressive the number of people who were interested in this;
“Dan McCurdy/George H. Bodeen Heat Treating Achievement Award. We are really pleased to show you this photo of Mr. Dan McCurdy, former President of the Bodycote, AGD Division in North America shortly after he received the George H. Bodeen Heat Treating at the Heat Treating 2019 exhibition in Detroit (Dan’s wife Kim is beside his side in this photo) Dan recently retired but we at “The Monty” are pleased to say that he is a friend and that very few people in the industry have had such a positive impact. His experience will really be missed.”
To round things out we visited the manufacturing facility of furnace builder Rohde in Hanau, Germany who have several furnaces on the floor ready to ship. One of those which is just about to go out the door is this vacuum nitriding furnace-the owner of the company Mr. Joern Rohde can be seen in front of the furnace,
Monday we will tell you about how one of the larger commercial heat treaters in Ohio, USA has a new General Manager. We will also show you some photos of the Kleve, Germany manufacturing facility of furnace builder Ipsen and also tell you about a new product the company is introducing. “What’s It Worth” is also included, our regular but rather sporadic thoughts about what some used heat treating furnaces are worth. Photos of captive and commercial heat treaters in Europe will be included along with a few gossip items. All upcoming.
The last major heat treating event of 209 the HK19 heat treating exhibition in Cologne, German is now officially over and done with. We have had some coverage and will continue to have regular photo updates including these. In the first photo we see the ALD team from the left; Klaus Loeser, Esther Tomm, Margit Lipper, George Molitor, Sonja Koerner and Mathias John.
In the photo below we see a very odd “pairing”, two arch rivals in the vacuum nitriding business, Rohde and KGO, both German furnace builders. Joern Rohde and Konstantin Rohde, Harald Roth and Paul Reichert of KGO.
Polish furnace builder SECO/WARWICK always continues to have a very high presence at all heat treat shows no matter where in the world it is.
Lets keep this international as befits this show. In the picture you can see Mr. Cihan Bilaban, of Turkey and Mr. Lee Rabe of WS Burners. Lee is from the US but is working with WS in Germany.
We are pleased to introduce you to the relatively new CEO and President of worldwide nitriding technology specialist and commercial heat treater Nitrex along with the new President of United Process Controls (to clarify the two companies are sister companies with the same owner). In this photo you see from the left; Paul Oleszkiewicz, Jean-Francois Cloutier, CEO & President of Nitrex and Olivier Caurette, President, UPC Global & Head of Europe. While not shown in this picture Karl-Michael Winter who has worked with the two companies for many years now has a slightly different position, that of VP R & D/Engineering for Nitrex. Nitrex and United Process Controls (UPC) are names which are recognized in the heat treating industry around the world.
Robert Noebauer who has had a long distinguished career in the heat treating industry in Austria has a new job. We first met Robert when he was working for commercial heat treater and furnace manufacturer, Rubig in Wels, Austria. since then he has moved on to become CEO of commercial heat treater HMW in Ybbsitz, Austria www.hmwelser.com In this photo you can see Robert on the left and Alexander Desch, Purchasing, IT and Plant Management on the right.
No heat treat show in the world is complete without Bodycote. In this picture you can see from the left; Florian Elwart, Martina Waegner (Senior VP AGI Germany & Denmark), Roger Liedtke (Regional Manager) and Thomas Kratz (Head of Central Services).
Yesterday we mentioned how commercial heat treater Thermetco https://thermetco.com/en/home/ in Quebec, Canada has recently moved into a new building and added more capacity (scroll down to yesterdays news items for more details). To go with that news item we have these additional photos taken by Jordan Montgomery just yesterday.
Jordan Montgomery of “The Monty” is in the Montreal, Canada region this week and he sent us these very interesting photos of commercial heat treater Thermetco, one of the largest commercial heat treaters in Eastern Canada. The company recently moved into a brand new location and already the company is considering expansion plans. By any standard Thermetco with over 100 employees is a big heat treater. In the first photo below the fellow you see is Mr. Andre Labranche, Logistics Planner for the company. The other photo shows you part of the salt department, more photos to come we promise.
