Earlier this year “The Monty Heat Treat News” had this story about an upcoming commercial heat treat closing in Michigan, USA; “US Company to Exit Commercial Heat Treating”. 

As an update to this story we can say that the closure will go ahead 12/21/2025 and unless something changes in the very near future the 3 cast link belt furnace lines will be scrapped. At one point in time cast link belt lines could be found in virtually every fastener manufacturing facility in the world, however the technology has largely been replaced by mesh belt furnace lines (except in cases of very heavy parts) so much so that it is becoming rare to see a cast link line in operation. Indeed we can’t imagine more than 1 or 2 a year are produced in North America if that.