It is with great regret that we mention the passing of Kathy Peterson.  Below is a message from her husband Kary Peterson who many of you will know.

“It is with a heavy heart that I share the news that my wife, Kathy Peterson, has passed away. After a 27 year battle with Breast Cancer, she passed peacefully on January 21, 2019 at our home in Rockford, surrounded by family. I wanted to take a moment and thank all of our business friends and associates for their kind wishes and support these past few years. As many know, Kathy was very involved with the rebirth of BeaverMatic in 1986. She worked closely with myself and my father, the late Mark Peterson, with the purchase of BeaverMatic from Barbara Beavers, the widow of Jack Beavers. Below is the obituary, honoring my late wife. I can’t thank you enough for the thoughts, prayers, and kindness that has been expressed. 

Sincerely, Kary Peterson”

https://www.cremation-society.com/obituary/Kathleen-A-Peterson/Rockford-Illinois/1832138

We are searching for 6 used mesh belt tempers, gas fired, capable of 1,000F with a belt width of 36” to 48” and a heated length of 10-16’ (except for temperature and gas heating dimensions are flexible). This is an immediate requirement. If you have something surplus we would appreciate hearing about it [email protected]

The Chromalloy gas turbine repair facility in Middeletown, NY just closed down. Chromalloy is a worldwide company which designs, manufactures and repairs parts that extend the lives of gas turbine engines. Because of the nature of their business many of their locations have really impressive heat treating departments typically featuring vacuum furnaces. In the case of the Middeltown location it is now closed and the furnaces already spoken for and in the process of being moved.

In Italy we are being told that furnace builder Meapforni is starting to ship the first part of a complete mesh belt furnace line. The furnace is capable of 1000 kg/hour production capacity and is completely automated from loading to unloading. The end customer is a manufacturer of special fasteners. These photos show the furnace wrapped and in the process of shipping.

Furnace builder Ipsen of Rockford, Illinois, USA is in the process of installing this brand new 6 Bar quenching vacuum furnace at Thermetco in Montreal. Thermetco recently moved into a brand new facility on the South Shore of the St. Lawrence river in Quebec and the company has made very substantial investments in new equipment including a new Batch IQ furnace, a new nitriding system and this new vacuum furnace.

As each day goes by, the older generation of heat treater’s  becomes another day older, and closer to the day when they will want to retire  and live comfortably.  Our age is not a thing that we can hide from.

So the question is asked, will the input (or volume) of the new young generation of heat treater’s keep pace in the numbers of new entrants into the heat tretment of metals world. I do not have any access to the number of new entrants in relation to the those who leave the industry (simply because they don’t like it), or they relocate in relation to the older generation who either retie or pass away).

We have the graduates coming out of college, but (without sounding disrespectful to those people who have been able spend at least 4 years of college studies of metallurgy), many unfortunately lack the practical experience). The only way they will get the experience is by working in the industry (for either captive het tretment shops, or commercial heat treatment shops). Some can be fortunate enough to work alongside a seasoned and experienced mentor.

But let us step back for a moment!! What about the furnace operators? It is the operator heat treater, who literally can ‘make or break’ the product that is being heat treated. It is that person who has to deal with;

Some years ago, I approached Mr Lance Miller (the then Metal Treating Institue President) regarding an idea that I had for the person on the shop floor.It had to be an affordable idea, because the industry  felt it could not justify high priced educational course’s for the heat treater, and later the employee leaved for another position. (A genuine fear) (but it was a fear!!). I proposed low priced on line heat treating courses for the shop floor operator on numerous subject relating to the Heat Treatment of Metals.

I left USA in 20010 for international assignments of teaching and consulting. I worked on numerous projects internationally embracing low pressure carburizing installation   and the training of the operator’s and staff, as well as assisting in the preparation for audits. I worked also in both Central America (Mexico and El Salvador on heat treat training as well as Chile, and Brazil.` I have worked extensively in and around India on heat treatment training and consulting projects. Saudi Arabia on oil and as well drilling (as well as the United States and South Africa), I have also worked on nitriding projects and training in UAE.

I worked also with a large international forging who have the most amazing technical research and development centre.   The centre specializing in gaining an full understanding of a particular metal, it application, forging, machining, thermal processing, to studying the performance of that metal and the product application. Yet they still wanted further education for its graduate and Ph.D. employee’s It is an absolutely amazing facility. A metallurgist and a heat treater’s ‘toy shop to die for!!!

Wootz Steel from India

What a foresight and forward thing company that is!!  I would like to make a visual introduction, that takes a new hire on a walk about in that particular heat treat shop that might specialize in;

This to show the potential employee/ operator, that they are not simply working on ‘ Fire Breathing Dragons’.

I am often asked why I don’t slow down!! My response is ‘if I slow down I will stop’!! I simply do not want to stop. I have too much to give back to the industry which has been good to me. It is not mine to hold onto!!

Ride a wild horse
against the sky-
hold tight to his wings
before you die
whatever else you leave undone
once ride a wild horse
into the sun.
~ Anonymous

I have numerous Heat Tretment course, that I have developed (too numerous to list here) and tailored for the student the new hire, the graduate person and can be conducted on site with the companies furnace and supportive equipment. I am continuing to write for The Monty on at least a weekly basis. I have gained a great deal of knowledge nd experience over the years of international heat treatment,  and one thing that I am certain of, is that;

Furnace builder/rebuilder Jeff McLaughlin of McLaughlin Services in Avilla, Indiana, USA just completed installation of a large batch IQ line in Viet Nam. The line consists of 2 Ipsen “Atlas” batch IQ furnaces 36″ X 48″ X 36″, 4 tempers, charge car and all necessary ancillary equipment. Originally the equipment was purchased by a Norwegian company Dokka Fasteners in 2012 for a facility in Michigan, USA. The plant was shut down 3 years later and the equipment has been in storage before being bought by a US pump manufacturer for their location in Viet Nam. McLaughlin Services also installed a McLaughlin Furnace Group True-Mix 4000 Endo Generator. Two of the photos below show the equipment installed in Viet Nam while the third shows the original installation in the US. In the pictures we see Jeff McLaughlin and Stephen Christopher of SSI who has been looking for new opportunities in Viet Nam.

Super Systems, Inc. recently completed two upgrade projects at American Heat Treating in Dayton, OH.  Controls were upgraded on a Beavermatic integral quench furnace that included a Series 9205 with a 12.1” HMI for atmosphere and temperature control and datalogging, a Series 804 for oil quench temperature control (heating and cooling), and other ancillary items.  A second project included a controls retrofit of a Lindberg 3000 SCFH endothermic generator with an SSi AutoGen control system.

Van Hatcher, Instrument Technician and project leader at American Heat Treating said, “Our long-range plan was to upgrade the controls on the Beavermatic, but when the old controller failed without notice, Super Systems jumped into action and did the complete upgrade project quickly.  Our endothermic generator has been operating with the new SSi AutoGen controls with no issues since commissioning.  We look forward to the operating cost savings that come with the automated turndown features.” 

Super Systems Inc., based in Cincinnati, Ohio, has been developing and manufacturing products for the thermal processing industry since 1995. SSi’s products include probes, analyzers, flow meters, controllers, software solutions and engineered systems. With over 100 years of combined experience, SSi continues to satisfy industry demands with innovative technology, enabling customers to be more efficient and to produce higher quality products. For more information on SSi’s capabilities, visit www.supersystems.com.

American Heat Treating, located in Dayton, Ohio is a full service commercial heat treating company with atmosphere, vacuum, flame hardening, cryogenics, straightening and sand/shot blasting. ISO 9001:2015 certified.  For more about American Heat Treating visit www.ahtdayton.com.

Machining company Blue Chips Manufacturing in Caseville, Michigan, USA who does a small amount of heat treating in house managed to set one of their ovens on fire not once but twice last week resulting in the local fire department making two visits to the company. Damage was minimal it sounds like. 

We recently ran across an article by the “Furnace Doctor, Mr. Dan Herring” a heat treat consultant who we happen to have a very high opinion of. Dan was estimating the size of the worldwide heat treating market and came to the conclusion that the current size of the market is $90-100 billion USD per year of which $18 to 18.5 Billion USD is in North America. There is a bunch of studies out there each purporting to know the size of the market and in most cases we are not impressed. Having said that if anybody in the world knows the size of the market we would expect it to be Dan and consequently we would expect these numbers to be as close as anybody will ever get. Speaking of the size of the heat treating market we would suggest checking out our list of the Largest Captive Heat Treaters in North America  Perhaps we don’t have Dan’s knowledge however in our conceit we feel our summary is pretty accurate.

https://themonty.com/10-largest-north-american-captive-heat-treaters/

Last year fastener manufacturer Kamax announced plans to build a new plant in Mexico (press release below). As part of this plan the company is bringing a continuous mesh belt furnace from one of their locations in Europe “German manufacturer Kamax announced plans to invest US$ 45 million in the municipality of Leon, Guanajuato to build a plant dedicated to the production of high strength fasteners for the automotive market. The facility, Kamax first manufacturing site in Latin America, will be located in the Colinas de Leon industrial park. The company plans to open 215 job positions in order to star operations by March 2019. Kamax has already orders in Mexico for US$ 25 million, company officials said during the ceremony to unveil the investment plan, which took place at the Hannover Messe 2018 industrial fair in Germany.  The company employs 3,300 workers at facilities in Germany, Spain, Czech Republic, United States and China.” 

Commercial heat treater Hauck in Letchworth, UK recently fully commissioned their new Aerospace vacuum furnace. The furnace has working dimensions of 1000 X 1000 by 1200 deep and is capable of temperatures up to 1200C. Hauck is part of the Aalberts Industries Group of companies based in the Netherlands and is one of the largest commercial heat treaters in Europe.

Again in the UK we see that ATL Turbine Services is adding another vacuum furnace; “ATL has just received the latest addition to increase our processing capacity – a brand new vacuum furnace.  This is the single largest CAPEX investment in ATL over the last 10 years and adds 50% to our heat treatment capacity.  Commenting on the delivery, operations manager, David Henderson said, “This furnace will add significant additional capacity to our heat treatment capability and will help ATL expand and grow our component repair services.  The furnace also encompasses a hydrogen cleaning facility which will deliver additional capability for taking on new work and new material types.” The furnace is currently being commissioned and will be available for use by the end of January”.

What’s Upcoming? This week we are going to visit commercial heat treater Erie Steel Treating in Erie, PA, USA and provide a few photos. The week after we are going to profile furnace builder ECM in Grenoble, France along with commercial heat treater TTN in Milano, Italy. Also upcoming are interviews with Laurent Pelissier, President of ECM and also the President of Quintus Technologies, LLC-Quintus is the company which is selling all the Hipping systems in the USA these days, and we will tell you about a captive heat treater who suffered a very serious fire the day after Christmas which is not a good way to start off the year.

Now here is some useless trivia for you. The first vacuum carburizing load was run almost exactly 50 years ago at John Deere in Iowa, USA. The year was 1969 and the load was processed in a 10 bar furnace and methane was the carburizing medium. Vacuum carburizing has come a long way since that time and in certain industries such as automotive gearing it has become the predominant form of heat treating. To mark the occasion we at “The Monty” are going to be visiting one of the pioneers in the vacuum carburizing industry and one of the largest manufacturers- ECM in Grenoble, France. We will take the opportunity to interview the President of the company Mr. Laurent Pelissier, get his thoughts on the future of the technology and provide you with some photos of ECM. In the attached photo taken just 3 months ago at ECM in Wisconsin, USA Laurent is shown on the left.