Monday Morning Briefing

Largest New Furnace Order of 2021 in North America. Recently “The Monty Heat Treat News” broke the story about the largest new furnace order in North America in 2021. We can now provide a few more details. As previously mentioned the customer is EXCO, a company based in Canada with multiple location around the world. Our understanding is that the investment is worth over 7 million USD, and this will be spread between 2 locations in Ontario and that it includes vacuum furnaces and nitriding systems. We believe that the order involves two separate vendors. We have been hearing that the consultant for the project is Mr. Don Behm, a long time heat treater who we have always had a high opinion of.

Furnace Builder BMI of France is shipping their 149th vacuum furnace to Taiwan. It is a B54RHT type. A vacuum tempering furnace allowing the customer to do thermal treatment under inert gas convection up to 900°C (magnetic annealing, ageing…). More and more steel grades have this particular requirement in the production of high value-added components, especially in the aerospace, nuclear or precision casting industries.This furnace will be installed at a pump manufacturer in Taiwan who has an in house heat treatment department. The new B54RHT will soon join another BMI vacuum furnace, a tempering oven and a low pressure nitriding furnace.

SECO/WARWICK Sells Third Aluminum Annealing Furnace to Polish Customer. Eurometal S.A., member of the Eko-Świat Group and manufacturer of highly processed aluminum products, purchased a third SECO/WARWICK furnace. This solution will be used by the only rolling mill currently in operation in Poland, with Polish-owned equity. The new equipment will consist of  a Vortex® furnace for aluminum coil annealing equipped with an external cooling system. The furnace is adapted for operation under a nitrogen protective atmosphere. Thanks to the proprietary jet flow technology, the SECO/WARWICK Vortex aluminum coil annealing furnace combined with an optional by-pass cooler for cooling under a nitrogen atmosphere and SeCoil® — the control and simulation software — enables aluminum coil manufacturers to significantly shorten the production cycle. As a result, this design produces energy savings, increases productivity and improves the surface quality of the processed coils. The key feature of the system is the increased heat-transfer coefficient achieved thanks to directing the atmosphere at high speed simultaneously on both sides of the coil.

Florian Elwart a long time Bodycote (commercial heat treating) employee who was Head of Business Improvement in Germany recently made a change and is now a Specialist for plasma nitriding – plant construction – contract treatment with Eltropuls in Baesweiler, Germany. Eltropuls supplies plasma nitriding systems and also offers commercial heat treatment services. His father, Jan Elwart was one of the top Bodycote people in Europe for many years and also oversaw the Bodycote facilities in Brazil for a period of time. Florian is pictured in the middle below.

Daniel Breitkreuz was recently promoted to Maintenance Manager at H & S Heat Treating in Port Robinson, Ontario, Canada. H & S is one of the largest commercial heat treats in Canada and “Danny” is in our opinion one of the most competent, conscientious  maintenance people we have ever met.

Where are they now-Paul Zettler. Paul was involved in the vacuum furnace industry for a number of years mainly in Texas. It would appear that he has left the industry, Mr. Paul G. Zettler, formerly the Senior Project Manager, at Alphatek.of Texas, Inc.  Has entered the academic world, as Instructor, Robotics and Automation, at Texas State Technical College, in Waco, TX.  At this position, Mr. Zettler will be contributing to the training of Industrial Robot Programmers and Automation Technicians for applications in packaging and manufacturing cells.

Stacy McKee Appointed Plant Manager at Bluewater Thermal. In Ridgway, PA, USA, right in the heart of the powdered metal industry we find commercial heat treater Bluewater Thermal-Bluewater is a multi location company and one of the largest commercial heat treaters in North America. Stacy has worked for the company for almost 24 years very recently she was promoted to Plant Manager. We offer our congratulations.

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