We have often said that the two most desirable items on the used equipment market are Batch IQ Furnaces (36” X 48” X 36” or larger) and vacuum furnaces with diffusion pumps and at least 2 bar quenching (by the way to this list we would also add top notch Gas and Ion Nitriders as being extremely desirable). In our “What’s It Worth” category this item fits the bill for a very desirable vacuum furnace; a fairly new GM Enterprises vacuum furnace installed at an aerospace company with working dimensions of  48” X 48” X 48”, diffusion pump, 2 bar argon quenching, always used on a closed loop water cooling system, new hot zone and blah, blah, blah, blah-you get the picture. Asking price for this item is $375,000 USD which is a ton of money-worth it? We think since a new version would be well over $1 million USD that probably it is worth every penny and will sell quickly. We promise to update you on when this sells.

So who is probably the largest commercial Induction heat treater in North America? Well the answer will probably surprise you, Contour Hardening with location in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA and Silao, Mexico.  If this surprises you, it certainly surprised us also. The company has been in the news quite a bit recently, partly because of their new CEO, Ben Crawford and most recently because of their press release that they had ordered a brand new nitriding furnace for their Indianapolis location, an announcement which caught a lot of peoples attention. We are going to give you a more in depth story about the company in the next few days but we can share this with you. Who is providing the new nitriding furnace-Gasbarre Furnace Group who will be using SSI controls.

“Greenville, SC, December 12, 2018 – Solar Atmospheres South Carolina facility proudly announces that Mike Paponetti has accepted the position of Sales Manager. Prior to accepting this position, Mike was the Regional Sales Manager at our Hermitage, PA facility. Mike will lead the sales efforts to maintain and promote sales for Solar Atmospheres in the Southeastern United States and we are confident Mike will provide our customers with exceptional support.  Solar Atmospheres Southeast President, Steve Prout says, “We are excited to have Mike as a part of the Solar Atmospheres Southeast team.  With over 20 years of thermal processing experience, his heat treating and brazing expertise will be a tremendous resource for our customers.” This promotion opens a vacancy for a Regional Sales Manager position at our Hermitage, PA facility.  For more information on this career opportunity and to discuss joining a stable, growing company who partners with each of our customers to meet or exceed their expectations, please contact Mike Johnson at [email protected].”

“Expanite the Danish pioneer specializing in surface hardening of stainless steel and titanium—is widely replacing coatings in a variety of demanding applications. For more than 70 years, coatings, in their various forms, have been “the standard” to improve resistance towards wear, impact, and corrosion for stainless steel components in a great variety of industries, including food & beverage processing, oil & gas, aviation, transportation, industrial, and consumer products. However, in recent years several performance limitations associated with coatings have driven the engineering community, to seek better coating materials, as well as more cost-effective methods to apply them. Among the most promising alternatives is the patented Expanite hardening technology. Recently, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of precision nozzles and nozzle systems has converted from tungsten carbide coatings to Expanite surface hardening after experiencing quality issues with the coating cracking off. In cooperation with Expanite, they found a hardening solution that made the surface of the nozzles resistant against chipping, cracking, delamination, etc.”

2018 was a banner year for acquisitions in the North American commercial heat treating industry-possibly a record breaking year (if we ignore Bodycote acquiring Lindberg all those years ago). No company has been more prolific though than Thermal Process Holdings. Regular readers of “The Monty” will be well aware that in 2018 the company acquired Certified Metal Treating in Springfield, Ohio, Hudapack Metal Treating Inc.,  in Wisconsin and most recently P & L Heat Treating in Youngstown, Ohio. Based upon this frenzied activity we felt it was long past time to look at some of these acquisitions and the first is P & L in Ohio which we will profile later this week. In the meantime we will provide you with this picture which shows the founder of the company, Mr. Bill  Pociask and part of his team in front of a REMIX vacuum furnace which forms part of the company’s vacuum department.

Paulo is celebrating its milestone 75th year in business. The company was founded in 1943 in St. Louis by husband and wife Ben and Pauline Rassieur. The two had previously worked for Central Mine Equipment Company. Pauline, after whom Paulo is named, was one of the first women to earn an engineering degree from the University of Missouri. Paulo Products Company was originally conceived as a manufacturer. Heat treatment was intended as a secondary business that would pay the bills while the firm’s product manufacturing operations were developed. Paulo did manufacture some products in the early days, but helping customer succeed by offering thermal processing solutions is where the company excelled. “I think that most people are surprised, maybe even shocked, to know that my grandfather and grandmother would have given up everything that they had done professionally to start a heat treat shop,” company President Ben Rassieur III said.

The company started humbly, renting a small storefront space in downtown St. Louis. Its first heat treating equipment was pieced together from spare parts bought from junk yards. Three-quarters of a century later, Paulo operates plants in Kansas City, Missouri; Cleveland, Ohio; Nashville, Tennessee; Murfreesboro, Tennessee and Monterrey, Mexico in addition to its flagship St. Louis operation. “I think if you look back to the very beginning of Paulo, people would be astounded to see where we are right now,” said Executive Vice President Terry Rassieur. The Rassieur family’s commitment to innovation and customer service has spurred a rich tradition of developing unique treatments and building custom equipment that allows customers in key industrial sectors to take their components to new heights. The spirit of innovation also led the company to be the first of its kind to adopt computers for ordering and invoicing in 1966. And in 1996, Paulo unveiled PICS, the Product Information and Customer Service system. This proprietary quality assurance software monitors and records treatment parameters and ensures treatments are executed consistently.

Paulo celebrates milestone anniversary St. Louis, Mo-based Paulo observes its 75th year in business as a thermal processor of critical components used in a wide array of industries Today, some of the biggest names in aerospace, automotive, power  generation and other key sectors rely on Paulo to provide advanced heat treatment for their critical components. That reliance has fueled the next stage of Paulo’s growth as the company’s first international division in Monterrey, Mexico is now online. “I envision Paulo in the future to be not just one of the largest commercial heat treaters in the Midwest, but I see us having more of a global footprint,” said Emily Rassieur, an HR Management Associate and part of the fourth generation of Rassieur family leadership. “We’ve already taken steps in that direction by opening the plant in Mexico. We’ll have new opportunities in places outside of the U.S. to make an
impact and have a presence.”

The Rassieur family credits the company’s success to the employees whose hard work made it possible. “Without our people, we’re nothing. They bring so much to the table,” Emily Rassieur said. “We want to thank all the dedicated employees over the past 75 years,” Will Rassieur, Vice President of Sales, said. “We thank those who have worked with us in the past, work with us today and will work with us in the future.”

Saw blade manufacturer Contour Saws near Chicago, Illinois has what was at one time a large in house heat treating department consisting of a number of top loading Lindberg vacuum annealing furnaces. Their process requirements changed over the years with the result that all of the furnaces have become surplus. There is a limited market for this style of furnace but all 12 of the furnaces are in good condition and in need of a home-if you have an interest we would be happy to put you in touch. Interesting company by the way, one which is steeped in history going back to the 1940’s.

WATERLOO, IA – December 10, 2018 – Advanced Heat Treat Corp. (AHT) Corporate Quality Systems Manager, Connie Mackey was recently selected to be a voting member of the Nadcap Heat Treating Task Group. Nadcap is a global accreditation program designed to ensure standardized and cost-effective approaches and to provide continual improvement among the aerospace and defense industry.

The task group Mackey will be serving is composed of prime contractors, government representatives and suppliers. Task group members are responsible for deploying the accreditation process, recommendations for auditor hiring and training needs, standard and checklist development, metrics, and continuous improvement.

“It is a huge honor to be a voting member for this task group amongst so many quality and aerospace experts,” stated Mackey. “It provides AHT with an avenue to assist with both quality and technical expertise.”AHT received their initial Nadcap accreditation in ion nitriding at their corporate headquarters in 2013. In 2018, AHT was recertified, extending their accreditation until April 30, 2020 – the longest accreditation award possible.

AHT Director of Metallurgy and Quality Excellence, John Ludeman added, “Connie is a very driven person and is always looking for new opportunities within the business to stay active, share her process and product expertise, and reach higher in her professional career. This is a great opportunity to have a voice from the supplier perspective to the task group from a very knowledgeable and seasoned professional.” For more information on Nadcap, visit www.p-r-i.org/nadcap/. To view AHT’s quality certifications or learn more about their services, visit www.ahtcorp.com.

About Advanced Heat Treat Corp. Established in 1981, Advanced Heat Treat Corp. (AHT) is a recognized leader in providing superior heat treat services and metallurgical solutions to companies across the globe. Their UltraGlow® family of processes includes plasma/ion nitriding, ferritic nitrocarburizing (FNC), gas nitriding, UltraOx®, through hardening, carburizing, carbonitriding, induction hardening and many more. AHT has facilities located in Alabama, Michigan and Iowa. For more information on AHT and its services, please visit www.ahtcorp.com.

We will start off with an update to a news item we had last week about a company by the name of Cold Heading Company of Cleveland, Ohio, USA auctioning off some surplus equipment, including a number of heat treat furnaces. We made some predictions about what would happen to the equipment (you can find the details below). So how were our predictions? Almost 100% wrong much to our embarrassment. The small mesh belt line sold for $50,000 USD, the cast link line sold for $65,000 USD with the 2 generators included and the largest line remains on the market. Buyer for both lines was a company by the name of Total Forge of Mexico, a company we know nothing about.

“Roughly 2 years ago, Cold Heading Company closed their Lee Road, Cleveland facility and since that time the equipment (including their large heat treating department) has been sitting idle collecting dust. Tomorrow Thursday, December 6 everything goes to auction and this includes the heat treat department. This consists of an AFC 1500 pounds/hour mesh belt line, an AFC 2500 pounds/hour cast link belt line, an AFC 4,000 pounds/hour mesh belt line and 2 AFC Endo generators-all mid 1990’s vintage and all seeming complete and in reasonable or good condition. Now if we were betting people at “The Monty” this is what we expect will happen; the 1500 and 2500 pound lines will be sold to a scrap dealer, the endo generators will also be scrapped or go for almost nothing and the largest line, the 4,000 pound/hour line we would guess will either be sold or removed from the auction.AFC, the largest atmosphere furnace builder in North America is known as a premium supplier of continuous lines and generators but the reality is that very few people these days want continuous lines smaller than about 3,000 pounds per hour, cast link belt lines have little appeal these days and newer multi retort generators have largely replaced the older style units such as these. We actually hope we are wrong on these predictions as we hate to see top quality, good equipment scrapped but experience tells us this is what we can expect.”

As mentioned some time ago auto parts supplier and captive heat treater Dana in Glasgow, Kentucky closed this year and all the remaining equipment must be removed in the fairly near future. This includes 3 1970’s vintage Surface Combustion, gas fired 3 row pusher furnaces. The furnaces range in condition from very good to fair. Nothing wrong with the equipment and I would hate to see them scrapped but there is not a large market for used pusher furnaces. Jorgenson Forge out in Washington state is another facility which has closed and has surplus heat treating equipment, in this case some carbottom furnaces. The on line auction will go until December 11. One of the furnaces available is shown below.

Let’s move to Germany where we see that the VTN Group is adding LPC Capacity. VTN in Germany is a commercial heat treater with 5 locations around the country. Back in November 2015 100% of the shares of the company were acquired by Japan based IHI Corporation  meaning that the group now has four companies serving the heat treating and PVD/CVD/PACVD coatings industries; IHI Machinery and Furnace Co., Ltd (IMS), IHI Ionbond AG, IHIHauzer Technocoating B.V. and VTN Group. At the VTN, Witten-Herbede plant the existing fully automatic LPC line was just expanded by adding a new IHI LPC furnace. Georg Niessen, the CEO has this to say; “We really believe in this technology as a future alternative to chamber furnaces and we will be adding the new IHI LPC systems in the Wilthen plant (East German) and Freiburg plant (South Germany. By this we will meet the high and increasing customer demands in the future. The big advantages we see are the high uniformity during carburizing, enhanced cleanliness of products,the elimination of inter-granular oxidation layer and carburizing temperatures up to 1,050° C. The environmental friendliness is also trend-setting, there are no emissions or direct CO2 emissions. The systems used at VTN have a maximum capacity of 1,000 kg and are thus fully suitable for economic mass production.”

To this news item we will add that IHI is one of the largest manufacturers in the world when it comes to low pressure carburizing systems and to date has installed more than 300 systems with acetylene and oil quenching. The VTN Group has 5 locations around Germany with over 300 employees making them a darn big commercial heat treater.  The company services most industries and has NADCAP certification.  The photo below shows the brand new IHI low pressure carburizing furnace at the Witten plant.

This really cool picture shows the largest Plasma (Ion Nitrider) which Rubig of Wels, Austria has ever built. If it is the largest that Rubig has ever made then that means it is one of the largest built by anybody.

And to round things out we see that commercial heat treater Pontus in the Netherlands is now NADCAP certified, always a challenge but always a good thing. “Pontus received Nadcap accreditation for demonstrating their ongoing commitment to quality by satisfying customer requirements and industry specifications.”Achieving Nadcap accreditation is not easy: it is one of the ways in which the aerospace industry identifies those who excel at manufacturing quality product through superior special processes. Companies such as Pontus work hard to obtain this status and they should be justifiably proud of it,” said Joe Pinto, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at the Performance Review Institute. “PRI is proud to support continual improvement in the aerospace industry by helping companies such as Pontus be successful and we look forward to continuing to assist the industry moving forward.”

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 on the Advanced Manufacturing Park (AMP), Rotherham, Yorkshire.  The new advanced heat treatment centre, now fully operational and supporting customer requirements, offers a range of heat treatment services and has been established to support the aerospace and power generation markets in the UK and Europe.   The Rotherham facility was officially opened by Andy Greasley, Executive Vice President of Rolls-Royce’s Turbines Supply Chain Unit, in recognition of the enduring partnership between Bodycote and Rolls-Royce. Mr. Greasley commented: “Heat treatment and processing is a vital part of our supply chain and Rolls-Royce are delighted to be supported by Bodycote on the Advanced Manufacturing Park in Rotherham. Close coupling of this capability to our own Rolls-Royce business is critical for our future success and our relationship with Bodycote is one that we truly value.”

Also speaking at the event, AMRC (Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre) CEO, Colin Sirett, said the new centre will bring a key capability to the Advanced Manufacturing Park: “We’ve got everything from aircraft parts through to carbon fibre chassis for supercars all being manufactured on this site; the one piece of the process that was missing was materials processing. We can cast, we can forge, we can assemble, we can machine, but the one key element that was missing is exactly what Bodycote brings to the park. So it’s great to welcome the Bodycote team here and we are looking forward to working with them for many years to come.” VIP delegates were also the first to hear about Bodycote’s plans for significant expansion of the new site, which includes the securing of extra units on the Advanced Manufacturing Park. Tom Gibbons, President of Bodycote’s Aerospace, Defence & Energy division, commented: “Due to customer demand and interest since the announcement of this new plant in July, we are investing in further capacity and technology. The additional space we secured here at Rotherham is nearly three times the size of our existing unit. We are committed to ensuring we are able to meet our customers’ demand in the years ahead.”