Furnace and oven builder Delta H Systems in Pickerington, Ohio, USA is just about ready to ship an oven to a North American company doing additive manufacturing. This will be used for processing aluminum parts and features an external water quench tank. Delta H is a family owned business which offers a wide variety of walk in ovens, benchtop furnaces and composite curing ovens to name just a few of their many products. There are not many “in person” trade shows remaining this year. Furnaces North America which is slated to start September 30^th announced just last week that they would be changing to a “virtual” format. AISTech 2020-The Iron & Steel Technology Conference & Exposition which was to be held August 31 to September 3 in Cleveland has been cancelled. Pretty much the only heat treat related show which is still a go as a “real” event is the ASM IMAT 2020 (International Materials, Applications & Technologies) event in Cleveland, Ohio, USA September 14-17.

Tom Hart who was with SECO/WARWICK in the US left the company for a short period of time but is now back as Vacuum Furnace Product Manager. Why would anybody want to leave heat treating?

ALD Receives General Motors Supplier Quality Excellence Award for 2019 (Editors note; ALD specializes in vacuum carburizing of automotive transmission components). “Congratulations to the entire ALD Team on another fantastic year of providing Superior Quality Vacuum Heat Treating Services! The hard work, dedication, and support of our local ALD Port Huron MI. Team, ALD Vacuum Technologies GmbH, ALD Tratamientos Termicos, AMG (Advanced Metallurgical Group), and all our ALD affiliates has been very much appreciated. These efforts have resulted in having been awarded the General Motors Supplier Quality Excellence Award for 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and now 2019!”

Out in Wisconsin, USA Jagemann Munitions Components, a manufacturer of munitions will be adding to their heat treating department. Very nice to see these days that some companies are growing and investing. End of the line for Selma Precision in Selma, North Carolina. A number of years ago an Indian company by the name of Sona set up shop in Selma, North Carolina, USA to manufacture auto parts. The plant featured a fairly large in house heat treating department consisting of multiple batch IQ furnaces and associated equipment. Disaster struck in 2016 when a fire caused several million dollars worth of damage and destroyed at least one furnace. The insurer paid $21 million USD and the plant and heat treating department were rebuilt with state of the art furnaces and the company was back in business. Shortly thereafter the facility was shuttered and all of the equipment went on the market with the heat treating equipment being dispersed to various locations around the US. Last week marked the final end to the story with all the remaining equipment including 3 batch IQ furnaces having a new owner. The photo below shows an AFC batch IQ furnace which was part of the installation.

We’re going to leave you with a couple of photos of a commercial heat treater in South Africa by the name of Harchris Heat Treatment in Johannesburg which “The Monty” visited a couple of years back. Harchris is one of the largest heat treaters in the country and specializes in handling very large parts as you can see in the one photo.