Yesterday we looked at part of the in house heat treating department of FENDT Tractors in Germany, specifically we took a look at the immaculate “pusher” furnace department. Today we look at the other part of the department which consists of a number of batch IQ furnaces with an entire cell dedicated to press quenching. The advantages of pusher furnaces is their “economy of scale”, meaning a lower cost per pound of heat treating IF and only if you keep them full. Batch IQ furnaces would have a higher cost per pound for processing but much more versatility which is why many in house heat treaters have a combination of both. Continuous furnaces such as pushers for larger volume work, batch IQ (or sealed quench) furnaces for smaller volumes. FENDT is like many large in house heat treaters with a combination of both based upon volumes. One of the photos below shows the batch IQ department featuring a number of Aichelin sealed quench furnaces.

Our last series of 5 pictures (link below) shows the automated press quenching cell. This is dedicated to a small group of parts requiring the tightest specs on distortion and this cell is 100% automated-parts go in one end and robots take over all of the loading/unloading. We can’t tell you off hand who supplied the press quenching system, there are two major suppliers of press quenching systems in Germany, both of whom do a very good job.

This concludes our summary of the in house heat treating department of one of the foremost tractor manufacturers in the world, FENDT Tractors. We will be continuing on a regular basis our profiles of some of the largest in house heat treat departments in the world.