​We are currently attending the premier heat treating event in North America for 2019, “Heat Treat 2019” in Detroit, Michigan and have these photos to prove it. By the way in interesting people news we heard today that very experienced heat treater Jay Jefsen has accepted the position of General Manager at Bodycote in Covington, GA, USA.  

Gord Montgomery, Pete Batche, Quality Metallurgist, Emerald Steel
Processing, Michigan

​Jordan Montgomery, Jim DeMaestri, Erica Garber, Eliot Fischer Fluke Process Instruments

Josh Harvey & Kyle Favors (CF Thermal), Dale Montgomery, Bob Fincken (SSI), Jordan Montgomery, Aaron Ackerman & TJ Wright (Wirco)

Raphael Raatz, Technical Director, Rohde Furnaces, Germany, Dale, Gord and Jordan Montgomery

We learned this at the “Heat Treat 2019” exhibition currently ongoing in Detroit, Michigan, USA. “David Gangle, a 25 year veteran of furnaces, combustion systems and heat treat alloy, has accepted a position as Sales Manager with North American Cronite, North Ridgeville OH.”

“MACCLESFIELD (U.K.) — Bodycote, the world’s largest provider of heat treatments and specialist thermal processing services, held an official opening ceremony last week at its brand new facility in central Prague, Czech Republic. The VIP ceremony was attended by the local Mayor of Hostivice (Prague-West district), arch. Klára Čápová, and the British Ambassador to the Czech Republic, Mr Nick Archer. The Prague facility was officially opened by Paul Clough, President of Bodycote’s Classical Heat Treatment division for Northern Europe & Asia. Mr. Clough commented: “Bodycote is proud to be opening our newest facility in Prague, where we can be close to our customers and grow to meet their future demand.” The new heat treatment centre, now fully operational and supporting customer requirements, runs 24/7 providing a range of heat treatment services, and has been established to support the automotive and general industrial markets in the region.

Bodycote has operated a heat treatment plant in Prague since the early 1990s, but due to growth and demand had outgrown its premises. The new plant was purpose built to replace the old central Prague facility, with additional space for anticipated future growth, and has been strategically located close to transport networks and the international airport.

Roman Poslusny, Vice President of Operations of Central Eastern Europe for Bodycote’s Classical Heat Treatment division commented: “The Czech Republic is an excellent place for Bodycote to invest in order to support our customers’ supply chains locally. This expansion helps to demonstrate our commitment to our Eastern European customers by providing the best possible service.”

First Photo. Cutting the ribbon (left to right): Paul Clough, President of Northern & Eastern Europe (Bodycote); Klara Capova, Mayor of Hostivice; Nick Archer, British Ambassador; Baris Telseren, Senior Vice President Eastern Europe (Bodycote); Roman Poslusny, Vice President Central Eastern Europe (Bodycote).

Second Photo. Welcome to the opening ceremony: Roman Poslusny, Bodycote’s Vice President of Central Eastern Europe, welcomes guests to the official opening ceremony.”

So what do high priced, professional sales reps for furnace manufacturing company AFC-Holcroft do with their spare time during the “Heat Treat 2019” exhibition? Why they play Wirlyball of course. Like many companies AFC takes the opportunity to have their sales meeting during the show and Whirlyball (a combination of lacrosse and bumper cars) was part of the meeting. In the second photo we see Jenna Alder who is heavily involved in the parts department at AFC.

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​“Cascade Metallurgical, a Pacific Northwest based heat treating company, has elected to sell their facility located in Kent, Washington. The concrete tilt-up building offers 36,980 square feet sitting on a fully fenced 1.53 acres.  Specialized improvements to the property include an upgraded 5” high pressure natural gas feed to fuel 15 furnaces, 2,000 amps of 480v 3p power, and purpose-built air and heat handling infrastructure.  The facility is currently in operation and maintains NADCAP certification, serving a large network of local and national customers.  The property is well positioned on a major arterial in Kent’s heaviest industrial zone, allowing almost any manufacturing or industrial use outright within a business-friendly political environment.  The Kent Valley is the heart of the Puget Sound Industrial Market, one of the nation’s most concentrated centers for manufacturing, R&D, international trade, and construction industries.   The location has fantastic visibility and convenient access to Seattle 20 minutes away, and Tacoma 30 minutes to the south.  The Puget Sound region’s history is inexorably tied to aerospace and technology industries (Boeing, Blue Origin, Microsoft, Amazon, to name a few) which has led to a large pool of skilled labor and a wide variety of companies small and large to create a synergistic economy.  In recent years the region has seen strong economic growth and an ever-increasing demand for the many inputs required by development.” More details? [email protected]

We have repeatedly mentioned that the largest heat treatment exhibition in North America in 2019 is Heat Treat 2019 which is now taking place in Detroit, Michigan, USA. It is rather a co-incidence that as part of our Monday Morning Briefing yesterday we had a photo of the Kowalski Heat Treat (commercial heat treating) booth at the 2015 show in Detroit. Co-incidence because the first booth we ran across when we visited the exhibition this morning (during exhibitor set up and before the show actually opened) was none other than Kowalski Heat Treat as you can see in this photo. As usual the President of the company, Steve Kowalski was happy, happy, happy. Lots more coverage of the show this week.

​While we haven’t heard much about new vacuum carburizing orders or installations recently we ran across two this past week. In a posting about ECM last week we mentioned how we understood they had recently received an order for a very large installation. About the same time we ran across a North American manufacturer who had just placed a reasonably nice order with ALD. Course along the same lines we also heard about a large auto parts supplier who had been planning on ordering a VC system, however at a meeting just 2 weeks ago they postponed any decision on it for at least a year. In Canada captive heat treater Slacan in Brantford, Ontario is busy expanding their heat treating department and is getting pretty close to starting up some more equipment. Slacan is Canada’s largest designer and manufacturer of Poleline hardware and are pretty much unbeatable at what they do. Last week we had the chance to see the relatively new Bodycote (commercial heat treating) facility in Romulus, Michigan and we can tell you exactly nothing about it. It has been in operation a little over a year and all we can tell you is that it is a beauty and no expense was spared on the facility. Hopefully one of these days we will be able to persuade the “powers to be” to allow us a couple of pictures. February of this year the CEO of Ipsen in Kleve, Germany, Mr. Marc Angenendt parted ways with the company at which point we lost touch with him. Our understanding is that he is in the process of starting up a company in Germany to service the heat treating industry. We will be in Germany next week and will try and find out all the details. As the General Motors Strike drags on it is certainly having a dappening effect on the heat treating industry. Obviously all of the GM in house heat treating is shut down but in addition we are seeing a lot of furnaces shut down at commercial heat treats and Tier One suppliers all over the US and Canada.

BMI is one of the largest vacuum furnace builders in France and seems to provide a tremendous number of furnace to the Asian market. This is a not uncommon press release from the company; “On September 11th 2019, BMI hosted in its premises the visit of a Chinese delegation made of several members from the China Aviation Industry Corporation (AVIC). This visit was part of the Group’s Euro tour where they visit their qualified suppliers on a regular basis.The delegation included members of the purchasing entity CATIC but also top managers from three of the biggest subsidiaries of the Group: Cheng Du Aircraft, Shen Yang Aircraft and Xi An Aircraft. All three entities are already key customers of BMI.”

In the UK Commercial heat treater and testing lab “Keighley Laboratories” is updating their testing equipment and furnace controls according to this press release; “With the UK Aerospace Market continuously seeking to explore new technologies and pushing existing boundaries, competition to provide the highest quality services in aerospace is fiercer than it has ever been.The latest addition of a Leco ONH836 Gas Analyser to Keighley Labs Chemical Laboratory allows for the robust analysis of materials using Inert Gas Fusion, enabling Oxygen, Nitrogen and Hydrogen analysis. In addition Debbie Mellor, Manager Director had this to say; “We’ve also completed the investment programme of updating our furnace controls, allowing optimum process visibility and control of atmosphere.  This ensures Aerospace equivalent standards are applied to our commercial production, which in turn ensures high quality of product.  Along with further investments, we have also sought to increase our approval base, with recent Magellan Aerospace and Collins Aerospace approvals.”

This week will see the Heat Treat 2019 show in Detroit, Michigan, far and away the largest heat treat show in North America this year. “The Monty” is already in Detroit and we plan on providing live coverage of the event. It would appear that the last time this event was held was in 2015 and we have these photos to prove it. See you this week.