In business since 1950 Metcor is the largest commercial heat treater in the Canadian province of Quebec. This Nadcap Aerospace heat treater offers Vacuum, Induction, Atmosphere and Salt Bath Nitriding all in a 50,000 square foot building located just outside of Montreal, Quebec. The company has been making some major investments recently in new equipment to be able to offer their customers more capacity as well as the latest and greatest technologies.

“On Thursday, November 8, 2018, SSi-Mexico (Sistemas Superiores Integrales S de RL de CV) held an Open House and cut the ribbon on a new service center and calibration laboratory in Queretaro, Mexico.  The celebration was attended by Stephen Thompson (President, Super Systems), employees, family, friends and customers.  The relocated facility is approximately 5,500 square feet (500 sq. meters) with modern office environs and state-of-the-art repair and calibration lab.  SSi-Mexico employees a talented staff of fifteen which serves all sectors of the heat treat industry in all the Mexican states within four major industrial zones of the country.

“In the spirit of Thanksgiving, Solar Atmospheres in Souderton, PA, along with sister companies Solar Manufacturing, Magnetic Specialties, and Vacuum Pump Services, held a food drive to support the Keystone Opportunity Center. Together, they were able to donate more than 790 lbs of food and supplies to those in need within the community.

Since 1963 Retech Systems has been manufacturing vacuum melting systems in Northern California…but that is all about to change. The next step in the story of Retech comes with a transition of much of the manufacturing and assembly previously done in Ukiah, CA to facilities in Świebodzin, Poland. All of the future work done at the SECO/Warwick facilities in Poland will be per the established Retech standards with the focus on maintaining all expectations associated with the Retech brand.

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?

“Good Morning! 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. This is big news for us and thought we would like to share this with the world.”

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...

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.

“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.

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...

“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.

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.

We have to hand it to SECO for selling a vacuum furnace into Japan-it is not an easy job. Japan in our opinion is the most close knit heat treating region in the world with Japanese heat treaters usually always buying from Japanese suppliers and only selling to Japanese customers. Having said that we will also say that heat treating in Japan is second to none. The attached photo shows a commercial heat treat shop we visited a few years back-a top notch operation.

“Tracy Dougherty has been named Vice President of Sales at AFC Holcroft.  The announcement was made by William Disler, President and CEO. According to Disler, “Tracy has a genuine ability of keeping the best interest of both AFC-Holcroft and our customers in mind as he deals with day to day activities within our group.  This promotion will further reinforce Tracy’s key leadership role within our company”.  Dougherty has been with AFC-Holcroft since 2008

The backbone of most heat treatment departments doing carburizing, neutral hardening or related processes is an endo generator to produce a carbon rich atmosphere. A typical older style unit can be seen in this photo-a...