Monday Morning Briefing
Selma Precision/Sona Precision Forge, Selma, NC.– the end of the line. Now this is a plant which has made our news section several times over the years. Originally it went under the name of Sona Precision Forge and it was a supplier of automotive components with a reasonably large in house heat treat department-mainly batch IQ furnaces. Going back to 2012 the facility suffered a large fire which affected half the plant and part of the heat treat department. The insurance claim totaled $21 million USD which was used to rebuild the plant, rebuild equipment and update the entire heat treat department, all with a new name “Selma Precision”. In a second setback to this plant it was abruptly closed in 2015 with all of the equipment remaining installed and in place. In 2019 the facility was taken over by a large auto parts supplier and over a period of time most of the equipment including most of the heat treat department was sold off. All that remains now are two Allcase furnaces, one of which can be seen below (more details can be found at https://themonty.com/project/surface-combustion-super-36-batch-iq-furnace/)
McLaughlin Furnace Group Press Release; “McLaughlin Furnace Group of Avilla Indiana, USA is pleased to announce that they have just received an order for batch IQ furnaces from a major US heat treater. The order consists of 3 batch IQ furnaces with working dimensions of 36” X 48” X 36”, a charge car, a McLaughlin “Tru-Mix endothermic generator, tempers and washers. All of the equipment will be delivered installed and commissioned in 2020.”
Hauck, Dzierżoniów, Poland. It is now 5 months since Hauck Heat Treatment had a ground breaking ceremony for a 3000 square meter expansion of their plant in Dzierżoniów, Poland. Now comes the final stage-furnace installation. What you can see in the one photo below are two brand new straight through IQ furnaces along with companion equipment. These are triple chamber units with a maximum load capacity of 2 tons each. We can’t be sure but our guess is the equipment is being provided by SECO/WARWICK but that is a guess on our part. The second picture shows the plant when we saw it a few years back.
March 18th there will be an auction in Fountain, Inn, SC featuring some heat treating furnaces. The equipment is located at Emitec, Inc., and the heat treat items include a 50″ Wide Elino Electric Mesh Belt Conveyor Type Heat Treat Furnace (New 2014) and a Rohde Model KEU1950 Electric Chamber Furnace (New 2011). Both Elino and Rohde are based in Germany and are well respected manufacturers, however they are virtually unknown in North America which leads us to believe that Emitec must be a German company.
Bob Hill, Solar Atmospheres Visits Washington, DC. “Bob Hill, President of Solar Atmospheres of Western PA, attended the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) Board of Directors Meeting in Washington, D.C. this week. Celebrating its 125th year, NAM boasted an outstanding lineup of speakers, including: Vice President Mike Pence (R); General “Fighting Joe” Dunford, Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Senators Mark Warner (D-VA) and Shelly Moore Capito (R-WV); Governor Larry Hogan (R-MD); Betsy DeVos, US Secretary of Education; and Ivanka Trump, Advisor to the President. NAM clearly has the attention of lawmakers, both inside and outside the Beltway, and is an influential advocate for manufacturers in the US.”
Pat McKenna, Ipsen. We look forward to posting a very interesting and in depth interview with Mr. Pat McKenna, CEO of Ipsen, USA, March 1 of this year. We would like to remind our readers that over the past almost 25 years “The Monty” had done more interviews with heat treaters and industry suppliers than any other source in the world- a number of these can be found at https://themonty.com/interviews/ Speaking of Ipsen Janusz Kowalweski of Ipsen has been spending a great deal of time in Asia on behalf of the company. Apparently over the next 3 months Ipsen will be installing 10 new vacuum furnaces in different parts of South Korea and East Asia. This photo shows a very nice installation in Korea with an advanced HPQ furnace.
To round things our for today we are going to mention a very experienced “vacuum guy” who is looking for a new challenge. Daniel Goosen has 20 years experience with vacuum furnaces and for the past 10 years he has been Heat Treat Manager at Bohler Uddeholm in South Africa. Dannie is looking for a position in the US where his experience can be used. We met Dannie a few years back, he is on the left in the picture below. If you would like to talk to him please drop us a line and we will put you in touch. There is not cost to this, we are trying to help an experience fellow heat treater.
