We were speaking the other day with John Quaglia, President of family owned Bennett Heat Treat which has two locations, one in Newark, NJ, USA and the other in Ivyland, PA http://bennettheat.com/ During the course of our conversation it came up in passing that the company has been in business since 1923 making it 95 years old-quite a feat. This prompted the question-is this the oldest commercial heat treater in North America? Certainly we can’t think of one older and neither could John. If anybody knows of an older shop we would be interested in hearing about it.
“East Carolina Metal Treating doing business as Virginia Metal Treating is proud to announce that Virginia Metal Treating in Lynchburg, VA has successfully completed their recertification for AS9100D and ISO 9001:2015 for Salt Heat Treat (Austemper, Mar Temper) Black Oxide, Tempering/Aging, and Abrasive Blasting. www.ecmtinc.com”
Generally our opinion is that manufacturers who have in house heat treating capacity make poor commercial heat treaters for a wide variety of reasons. However having said that we very recently visited a manufacturer who for years now has been offering commercial heat treating from their in house heat treating departments and has been very successful at it. KERN-LIEBERS is a medium-sized family owned company based in southwest Germany who specializes in the production of highly complex strip and wire parts and assemblies. The KERN-LIEBERS group of companies develops and manufactures precision products at over 50 locations around the world and currently 6 of these locations have in house heat treating capacity which offer commercial heat treating.
Two weeks ago we visited the Schramberg, Germany location which has the ability to offer Gas Nitriding, Nitrocarburizing – also of stainless steels, case hardening, carburizing, austempering and vacuum hardening. One look at the equipment tells us why the company is successful at commercial heat treating, it is new and varied. In addition as Kern Liebers services a number of different industries they have a wide variety of certifications including IATF 16949 and CQI9 to name a few. While a majority of the heat treat capacity is dedicated to their own products by sales volume, the commercial heat treating side of the business is substantial and contributes a significant part on it. It is important to note that while the company probably did not set out to be a commercial heat treater they certainly treat it as an independent profit center with worldwide heat treatment . Mrs. Li Haas [email protected] is working for the sales department in Germany, who is connected to all the heat treatment teams of the other locations.
Other locations offering commercial heat treating include China – Taicang near Shanghai and Tianjin near Beijing, India – Tumkur near Bangalore, Czech Republic – Budweis, and Mexico – Querétaro . While many of the processes are duplicated in the various locations some such as Plasma Nitriding is only available in one location (Taicang/Tianjin, China) or Induction Hardening which is only available in India and the Czech Republic. As we speak the company is making major investments in many of their plants, including two new pit furnaces from Rohde Furnaces in Germany-one for the Mexico location and another for the Czech Republic. Rohde has already equipped all worldwide Kern Liebers plants with either pit or chamber furnaces. Other planned additions include more of an emphasis on nitriding capacity especially in China and especially as it relates to heat treating of stainless steels. So while we feel that most captive heat treaters do not make a good commercial heat treater we can point to Kern Liebers and say; “here is a company that manufactures a very good product and is also a darn good commercial heat treater.”
Kern-Liebers Mexico
Gord Montgomery, Li Haas, Joern Rohde
Furnace for nitriding of stainless steels, Taicang, China
Kern-Liebers Plasma Nitriding Furnaces, Taicang, China:
Kern-Liebers Plasma Nitriding Furnaces, Taicang, China
In Naperville, Illinois, USA die metal stamping company and captive heat treater C.H. Hanson just installed this quench system.
“L&L Special Furnace Co., Inc., has supplied a custom designed and manufactured oil quench tank to a metal stamping manufacturer in the Midwest. The quench tank is specifically used to quench metal stamping dies that are heated to 1,550°F. Usable dimensions are 12” wide by 12” high by 24” long. The parts are placed in a basket prior to being quenched. They are then manually placed into the quench oil. The quench tank has an oil media that is agitated by a 1 horsepower pump that is directed up under the parts basket. There is an oil to water cooling heat exchanger to control the oil temperature. The system is designed to run one cycle per hour with 35 pounds of material.”
“NBR Cooling Systems in Indian selects SECO/WARWICK Controlled Atmosphere Aluminum Brazing (CAB) system for automotive heat exchangers. NBR Cooling Systems, an independent heat exchanger manufacturer for the domestic automobile industry, recently purchased a SECO/WARWICK signature CAB Brazing system to reduce energy costs as well as improve production quality and operate within the latest environmental regulations in India. “We selected SECO/WARWICK because they provided a high quality production assurance which we needed to keep our plant running efficiently along with low atmosphere consumption, minimum maintenance and repeatable process results, all at a low capital cost investment. A SECO/WARWICK CAB system was definitely our first option – the company leverages many years of experience and guarantee continuous trouble-free operation at a high technological level and provides local contact, care and service” according to Aarif Hussain, NBR Cooling Systems Managing Director. He continued, “The government has put greater emphasis on the environmental impact issues, therefore our goal with this purchase is to put NBR Cooling Systems on track for sustainable development in the future.” “SECO/WARWICK is a well-known CAB Brazing technology creator and one of the world’s most experienced suppliers. Dozens of patents and R&D projects, thousands of deployed solutions and CAB Brazing customers in more than 30 countries are proof of our technological expertise, and the reason why companies like NBR choose SECO/WARWICK. Together with professional technical services, we can support our customers from the beginning until the end of the product life. We are pleased to support NBR Cooling Systems’ vision to become the leader in the national and international market for commercial heat exchangers and air conditioning systems for the automotive industry,” said Liu Yedong, Managing Director, SECO/WARWICK RETECH (China).”
Bodycote, the worlds largest heat treater just released a trading update for the four month period from 1 July to 31 October 2018. A summary can be found below with all the details at https://www.bodycote.com/
“Group revenue for the period was £243.5m, 5% higher than the comparative period last year and 6% higher at constant currency, and in line with our expectations. This represents solid growth, particularly given the strong performance in the comparative period in 2017. Group revenue for the 10 months to 31 October 2018 grew 6% (8% at constant currency), with Specialist Technologies continuing its strong growth, up 11% at constant currency (both in the period and year-to-date). All percentage movements in the following review of the Group’s markets compare to the same period in 2017, at constant currency. Car and light truck revenues grew 5%, notwithstanding weak background market demand in Europe and North America. The growth has been driven by continued strong performance in Emerging Markets and Specialist Technologies. Civil aerospace revenues grew strongly at 14%, with North America and Western Europe both registering good growth. This reflects increasing output for the LEAP program and an easing in the OEM supply chain bottlenecks for Titanium castings. Energy revenues grew 4%, as the Oil & Gas business continues to perform well, while our Industrial Gas Turbines (IGT) business weakened further with underlying revenues falling by more than 25% in the period. General industrial revenues were 4% higher, in line with the general trends in industrial production. On a divisional basis, ADE revenues were up 6% to £97.8m (up 6% at constant currency, and for the 10 months to 31 October 2018, 8% ahead), while AGI revenues were up 5% to £145.7m (up 6% at constant currency, and for the 10 months to 31 October 2018, up 8%).”
“One of the UK’s largest heat treatments and hard coatings suppliers to aerospace, automotive, motorsports and surgical implant industries is starting 2019 with increased capacity coming online and is exhibiting on stand L75 at Southern Manufacturing at Farnborough. The Wallwork Group operates from four locations, Manchester, Birmingham, Cambridge and Newcastle to provide a rapid service to customers in all corners of the UK. Operating capacity has increased as a number of new investments in equipment go live at the end of 2018. These include a large capacity Seco vacuum furnace and Rübig Plasma Nitride furnace in Cambridge. A new 1200kg payload furnace for processing aluminium is coming on stream in Birmingham and this will be followed closely by a new sealed quench furnace due to be in operation early 2019. Howard Maher, group sales manager, commented, “Additional plant is only part of the story. We have a strong service ethic that is rooted in our people. Combined with a dedicated pick-up/delivery fleet, UKAS certified in-house mechanical testing and multiple aerospace prime accreditations, customers really appreciate the full end-to-end service we can provide. Fast, efficient and without compromising quality.” Processing aluminium and vacuum brazing, particularly, are seeing greater demand, so the new capacity is coming on stream just at the right time. In the light of REACH and also important is the in-house developed environmentally safe PVD coating that is a full HCP (hard chromium plating) replacement.”
An aerospace company near Los Angeles, California recently replaced their older vacuum furnaces with brand new units and in the process sold the older furnaces to a used equipment dealer who has just put them on the market. They are going to have a limited market as they are relatively low temperature (1650-1700F) but for size they are extremely impressive. There are a total of 6 units and this shows the largest one a monster at 83” wide X 143” deep X 65” high. We can think of very, very few vacuums this size.
A reader in India wanted to brag about a very impressive batch IQ installation at Mahindra Vehicle in India. The line consists of 3 Ipsen Sealed Quench furnaces (Integral Quench furnaces for our North American readers) with working dimensions of 36″ X 48″ X 36″, pre wash, post wash, tempers, loaders and endo generator-in short everything needed for a complete heat treating department.
We are getting a real kick out of seeing commercial heat treater Thermetco moving into their brand new building just outside of Montreal. The first picture you see was taken very recently, the second one was taken last February.
