Monday Morning Briefing

Now this Monday Morning Briefing should appeal to everybody in the heat treating industry around the world whether you are a furnace manufacturer in Europe or Japan, an Aerospace company in North America or a commercial heat treater in the US Midwest.

In Green Bay, Wisconsin, USA we see that a commercial heat treat by the name of Metals Engineering has a new owner-but first the background from the company’s website https://www.metalsengineering.net/ “Metals Engineering was founded in 1967 and purchased in 2001 by Tom Kemen. Significant investment into equipment and personnel set the company on a growth track that continued under Tom’s son, Ted Kemen, who bought the company in 2005. The addition of new technology and equipment following the 2014 acquisition of Omega Metal Treating boosted the efficiency and capabilities of Metals Engineering’s De Pere facility.” On March 29th of this year Ted Kemen, the current owner formally sold the company to an individual by the name of Dean Re. Metals Engineering is an average sized commercial heat treater who can offer stress relieving, carburizing, Induction hardening and carbonitriding to mention a few.

Back in October of 2016 GKN Aerospace/ASTECH Engineered Products in Santa Anna, California, USA went though some major changes in their in-house heat treating department. This involved decommissioning 8 Ipsen vacuum furnace and replacing them with 3 new Ipsen horizontal vacuums and two new Ipsen bottom load vacuum furnaces. The older furnaces remained in place looking for a buyer. Unfortunately at the end of the day most prospective buyers decided these were past their “best before” date and the furnaces were scrapped very recently. What made these furnaces really interesting was the size, the largest were 80” in diameter and 120” long. In this photo we see one of the furnaces.

If you are a furnace manufacturer in Europe we would imagine that this news item about Japanese furnace builder Dowa Thermotec and Italian furnace manufacturer Italstart/Meapforni will be of a great deal of interest; “Dowa Thermotec Ltd., one of the top Furnace manufacturers and heat treaters globally is pleased to announce that  Dowa will be entering the European market to offer their latest state of the art, cutting edge technologies in the field of heat treating  for the European market.

The equipment offered to the European market will take into account user preferences in terms of makes/ assemblies complying with European standards in terms of furnace operation. This initiative by Dowa will be supported on the ground by a new relationship and partner, Italstart supported by Italstart subsidiary Meapforni for furnace parts, after sales support and maintenance. Technology by Dowa with active support from Italstart on sales and service will offer unmatched quality of service and support. Dowa and Italstart are confident that technically advanced heat treat systems  supported by an efficient sales and service support will bridge a long felt need of European customers.”

Kinyon Gorton who was involved in the heat treat department at Caterpillar in East Peoria, Illinois, USA recently retired. Caterpillar certainly needs no introduction but we will add that they are the largest captive heat treater in North America. “Schumer demands end to aluminum tariffs! OSWEGO, NY, USA. Novelis brass joined rank-and-file employees on Tuesday to welcome Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer to the company’s Scriba plant, where the Brooklyn Democrat called for an end to what he said are unnecessary and harmful aluminum tariffs. Tariffs put in place in the past year were aimed at protecting the U.S. steel and aluminum industry, but officials say the move is negatively impacting Novelis, which has operations across the border in Canada.

One of Oswego County’s largest employers, Novelis Inc., is seeking relief from the tariffs and Schumer has vowed to support the company in those efforts and push for an end to tariffs imposed on U.S. allies.” This article was taken from a local newspaper in NY andwe actually really don’t care what Mr. Schumer in the US has to say about aluminum tariffs but what caught our eye was the reference to Novelis, In NY and Ontario. Novelis is an enormous supplier of aluminum both new and recycled and as such requires a great deal of very pure Nitrogen. After a long study the company recently started producing their own nitrogen on site, something which you see on an occasional basis in the heat treat industry. We have always been puzzled as to why so few heat treaters install their own nitrogen generating systems for one reason or another it does seem to be quite unusual.

In Canada commercial heat treater Metex just finished installing a new addition for them-a 3,000 pound per hour AFC-Holcroft mesh belt furnace line bringing their total to 7. More on Metex tomorrow. DCL International Inc., a manufacturer of catalytic converters based in Concord, Canada recently completed installation of a brand new SECO/WARWICK vacuum furnace. This is the second SECO vacuum furnace the company has installed. And speaking of SECO we see that Jędrzej Malinowski who has been with SECO, Poland for many years was recently promoted to Sales Team Leader, Thermal Furnaces Team. And that is a wrap for Monday April 22/2019.