Large Heat Treat Furnace Auction Concluded

In May of 2021 it was announced that the Eaton Vehicle Group facility in Hastings, Nebraska, USA would by closing by July of 2022 as you can see in this press release; “Cara Klaer, senior manager of communications for Eaton’s vehicle group, said in an email May 19 that members of Eaton’s management team met with employees at the Hastings facility to announce plans to consolidate its gear manufacturing operations. “Production of differential gears will be transferred to another plant in North America as Eaton’s Vehicle Group continues to adjust its footprint to best serve our customers,” Klaer wrote. “This consolidation will allow for operational efficiencies and increased utilization by capitalizing on existing gear machining and heat-treating scale in San Luis Potosi, Mexico.”

This location included a fairly substantial in house heat treatment department which featured several Surface Combustion 36″ X 48″ X 30″ batch IQ furnaces, endothermic generators, associated equipment and several Abar Ipsen Batch IQ lines. The auction was held last week, commencing February 21st to be exact and also included were a number of heat treat furnaces which did not come from this location. The event was heavily promoted and the end result was that most of the equipment sold at auction for reasonable prices, by reasonable we mean that the Allcase furnaces sold for between $100 and $150K which is about what we would have expected. It is a very good indication of the health of the North American heat treatment industry when older equipment sells promptly and for fair prices.