Monday Morning Briefing

Back in March 2018 we had a press release about Allegheny Technologies Inc. (ATI) making a major investment in their facility in Cudahy, Wisconsin-the press release is below. We have been lead to believe that what this means in terms of heat treating is an investment of roughly $15 million USD in a number of automated box furnaces with external quenching all in a brand new building. Rumors we have heard suggest that the supplier of the box furnaces is a company by the name of “Fives North American Combustion” and that the equipment is being shipped as we speak. “March 2018 ATI Ladish plant in Cudahy will undergo a $95 million expansion and add 125 jobs to meet a growing demand for aerospace jet engine components, company and state officials said Thursday. Under the expansion plan, the Cudahy plant will add a fourth iso-thermal press to the forging operations and adding more heat-treating capacity. The effort will take about three years to complete and fully qualify for aerospace-related production. ATI Ladish, part of Pittsburgh-based Allegheny’s ATI Forged Products division, supplies high-performance forgings and castings largely for the aerospace and defense markets.” Thermex Metal Treating in Edmonton, Canada the largest commercial heat treater in Western Canada is in the midst of updating some of their equipment. In this case they are removing an older pit carburizing furnace and replacing it with a Unitherm Industries Pit Carburizing furnace with working dimensions of 36″ diameter X 72″ deep. Thermex is a company which has always invested heavily in new and updated technologies.

We ran across this photo just yesterday which shows a new Powermax Batch IQ installation in Turkey. Powermax is a new furnace builder near Shanghai, China which was started by Andy Chen a number of years ago. Over the years it became a fairly large furnace builder and for quite some time it was the AFC-Holcroft licensee in China. Our understanding was that it became part of Chinese furnace builder Fengdong however obviously the company is still selling under the Powermax name.

Controls company SSi of Cincinatti, Ohio, USA continues to grow and recently added a third building almost directly adjacent to the current two buildings-we will be able to show you a photo of the new building this week. The photo below shows a new vacuum furnace built by CHS Asia being installed at an aerospace manufacturing facility in Thailand. The photo brought back some good memories of the founder of the company, Mr. Randy Simmons of the USA who passed away a few years ago at a relatively young age. Good to see that the company he founded continues to thrive.

Heat Treating Finland. Give the relatively short train ride between Moscow and Helsinki we decided to have a brief look at the heat treating industry in Finland after the Moscow heat treat show. As it turns in there is a small but advanced heat treatment industry in the country however at the end of the day are contact was limited. For what it is worth this photo shows Dale and Gord Montgomery in Helsinki, Finland last week.