Monday Morning Briefing
This past Friday we promised you an update on some of the recent auctions featuring used heat treat equipment-we start off with Angstrom Precision Metals of Mentor, Ohio, USA. This auction featured a total of 7 older Surface Combustion “Standard Allcases” which typically have working dimensions of 24” X 36” X 20” high and a couple of old Surface endo generators. Our feeling was that this equipment was not going to excite many people and our prediction proved correct. As far as we know captive heat treater Pace Engineering in nearby Willoughby, Ohio (who currently run 6 standard Allcases in their heat treat department) bought some of the equipment with the remainder being sold for scrap. This photo shows part of the heat treating department at Pace.
Aerojet Rocketdyne Auction, California, USA. We have already provided an update about this auction which featured a monster Abar Ispen vacuum furnace (photo below). However if you missed the update to cut a long story short the auction took place December 10th and the furnace remains on the used equipment market.
November 20th there was an auction at Ashland Precision Tooling in Ashland, Ohio. Of interest to heat treaters were a reasonably nice Plateg Ion Nitrider and an electrically heated Surface Combustion batch IQ furnace with working dimensions of 36” X 48” X 36”. The Ion nitrider sold to a commercial heat treater in the Cleveland, Ohio area for a supposed $50,000 USD and the Surface Allcase was bought by a used equipment dealer.
December 5th the equipment at what was once Bluewater Thermal Processing in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada went on the auction block. This included two older mesh belt lines, several batch IQ furnaces and two large systems for processing aluminum engine blocks. One of the Surface 36” X 72” batch IQ’s sold to a customer in Texas for over $300K USD, one was sold to a customer in Canada and supposedly 2 units were sold to an individual in Ontario who is planning on opening up a brand new commercial heat treat shop in the province, one of the mesh belt lines was also bought by this individual. The aluminum furnaces were not sold which is no real surprise, nice looking systems but a limited market. The photo below shows the furnace which went to Texas.
Last Friday, December 13th we had the photo below-when we posted it we suggested that the fellow on the left looked a great deal like David Crosby of the musical group “Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young”. We of course were having some fun with a good friend of ours, Mr. Henry Beckley of commercial heat treat Rochester Steel Treating in Rochester, NY, USA. On his left is the General Manager of the company, Mr. Keith Heiden. The company made our news section recently when we announced that they had just achieved NADCAP certification.
In people news we hear that Anne Miner has parted ways with furnace builder Diablo of Rockford, IL., USA. Anne has been in the heat treating industry for many, years, generally in a marketing position. The rumor mill is in high gear these days about one of the Larger Commercial Heat Treating Groups in North America being on the auction block. We say rumor, however we are pretty sure it is true. More to come on this in the near future. Metex Heat Treat (who we see are billing themselves as the largest commercial heat treat in Canada) just keeps on growing. The company which is based in Mississauga, Canada will shortly be installing a 36” X 72” X 36” batch IQ furnace which will compliment their existing 5 or 6 batch IQ’s (we’re losing track). This photo shows the founder of the company Mr. Surjit Bawa with Gord Montgomery in the firm’s induction department.
From Pennsylvania, USA we have this press release from Vacu-Braze; “Vacu Braze continues to expand its capabilities for the Aerospace Industry by receiving the GE Aviation Supplier Approval for Vacuum Heat Treating. The GT193 verifies that a review has been completed of Vacu Braze’s technical resources and quality system controls used in heat treating and has found our process to be capable of satisfying certain GE Aviation requirements and specifications. Vacu Braze offers a variety of services catering to the aerospace industry. These include precision vacuum heat treatment for parts such as fasteners, bearings and bushings, weldments, and many other aircraft components. As Vacu Braze continues to expand capabilities and technical certifications, we look forward to the opportunity to provide more high-quality services to customers in all the industries we serve.
Our friends at furnace builder SECO/WARWICK landed a nice order from an aerospace company in China.” SECO/WARWICK designed, manufactured and commissioned a 25-kg (55-pound) single-crystal furnace and a 50-kg (110-pound) vacuum melting and casting furnace for the production of high-quality, premium castings for a producer of aviation engines in China. The order includes a high-temperature vacuum gas-quench furnace that will be used for scale- and pollution-free thermal treatment of metals. SECO/WARWICK will also provide professional technical services to ensure smooth start-up and operation of the equipment.” And to wrap things up today we understand that aerospace supplier and captive heat treater Northstar in Bedford Park, Illinois, USA is about to start up some more equipment at their in house heat treat department. If you recall the Northstar facility in Milton, Ontario, Canada closed down at the end of 2017 and some of the equipment including furnaces and press quenches were transferred to Illinois after rebuilding.