Next week “The Monty” was to have visited Portugal for pleasure mixed with a little bit of business-the corona virus has put a stop to that. In lieu of a visit we will give you this summary of the heat treating market along with some pictures from one of the largest heat treaters in the country, “TTO”.

We are sure it will surprise no one that the heat treating market in Portugal is a small one with the vast bulk of the heat treating market revolving around the manufacturing of molds for the plastic industry. Apparently (and this was news to us) Portugal for hundreds of years was a hotbed of glass making which required molds, over the years this translated into the manufacturing of molds for the plastic industry. To give you an idea this relatively small country has over 500 manufacturers of tools and molds which are subsequently shipped all over the world. Now as we all know tooling and mold making requires some pretty high end heat treating which means that for a relatively small market there are quite a few very advanced vacuum hardening and vacuum nitriding furnaces.

In Portugal the largest captive/commercial heat treater is a company by the name of Ramada who has been in business for more than 75 years both as a heat treater and a distributor of steel for Uddeholm. The company has 13 vacuum hardening and vacuum nitriding furnaces all from French furnace builder BMI along with 8 sealed quench furnaces with oil quenching https://www.ramada.pt/pt/servicos/acos-ligas/tratamentos-termicos.html

A second major heat treater is ThyssenKrupp which probably needs no introduction. Their steel centre is complimented by their heat treating department which consists of a number of older Ipsen vacuum furnaces from the 1980’s along with some newer plasma nitriders. While they have been around for quite some time they are probably half the size of their main competitor Ramada. 

The newest and most aggressive heat treater in the country is a company by the name of TTO http://tratamentostermicos.com/pt/ The company is a manufacturer of components for molds and they entered the heat treating market in 2005. Over the years they have continued to add new furnaces with the end result that they now have 12 vacuum hardening and vacuum nitriding furnaces all from an Italian company by the name of Coffi. This is in addition for several carburizing lines which service the components side of the business. Unfortunately at this date we can’t give you any first hand insight, this will have to wait for another day. What we did learn though in our preparations for Portugal is that while it is a small market, it appears to be a very sophisticated one and from the photos we have seen the heat treating will rival most areas of the world.