Nitrex To Install Vacuum Carburizing System & More Heat Treat News

For the week starting Monday July 20th, we have some very interesting heat treat news items for you starting with a news item about Nitrex in Aurora, Illinois, USA installing a new ECM vacuum carburizing system; Jason Orosz, President of Nitrex Heat Treating Services, announced a new plant investment aimed at expanding the Aurora, Illinois commercial heat treat facility located just west of Chicago. The production expansion will add a fourth building on the property to house a new low-pressure carburizing (LPC) system and secondary heat-treating equipment.

The new ECM vacuum carburizing furnace with oil quench capabilities will help meet growing demand from makers of high-end critical parts within the automotive, aerospace, and tooling industries. The 20-bar dual-chamber furnace has a workload size of 40″ L x 24″ W x 28″ H (1000 x 600 x 715 mm) and a load capacity of 1500 lbs. (680 kg).

Nitrex will break ground on the new building on July 20, which will connect to an existing structure, Building 3. According to Bill Walter, Facility Manager of Nitrex Aurora, the construction project will be completed in January 2021, and production on the LPC furnace is expected to begin in April 2021. The expansion will increase the production footprint by 11,000 square feet, a pre-requisite to support current demand as well as future growth. Once this building is completed, the total floor space will be over 50,000 square feet. Nitrex first put down its roots in Aurora, Illinois in 2000, after acquiring Alliance Metal Treating from owner Tom Cooper, who stayed on following the acquisition to run operations and to help position the company for future growth. Initially, the plant offered heat treating processes focusing on annealing, carburizing, carbonitriding, neutral hardening, and normalizing.” In the photo below we have; Tom Cooper (Vice President of Business Development), Bill Walter (Facility Manager), and Raja Gumber (Senior Account Manager).

Now this is a real cool press release from Accurate Brazing in Greenville, SC, USA. “Accurate Brazing proudly announces and welcomes Jennifer McPeek to the newly created position of Southeast Regional Sales Manager. McPeek will focus on sales and marketing for Brazing, Heat-treating, and HIP’ing customers in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. “We are very excited to have Jennifer join Accurate Brazing. She has a proven track record developing customer relationships and generating sales growth. She will be a vital part of Accurate Brazing’s Sales & Marketing strategy and growth into markets for not only our Brazing and Vacuum Heat-treating services, but also our HIP’ing capabilities,” said Brent Davis, Vice President of Accurate Brazing.

Jennifer joins Accurate Brazing with more than 30 years of experience in the Brazing and Heat-treat industry, working with customers across the Aerospace, Automotive, and General Industry sectors, and brings with her extensive connections throughout the US. Jennifer can be reached directly at JenniferM@accuratebrazing.com or 561.225.3458. Accurate Brazing, a subsidiary of Aalberts N.V., is a full-service, one-stop shop for Vacuum Brazing, Heat-treating, and HIP’ing with over thirty years in the business and tailored primarily to support the Aerospace, Additive, and Power Generation markets. Accurate Brazing has facilities located in South Carolina, Connecticut, and New Hampshire.”

The seriousness of COVID-19 really hit home last week with the passing of a 61 year old commercial heat treater in California due to COVID-19 complications. This is the first time we have run across a death in the heat treating industry directly related to this virus. Mark Hemsath of furnace builder SECO/WARWICK was recently promoted to VP Super IQ® and Nitriding Technologies. We congratulate Mark, he is a good man who knows his stuff. Where are they now-Steven Sumner. Steven is another individual who has spent a great deal of his working life in the heat treating industry in North America. For a number of years he was with Applied Process in Livonia, Michigan ending up with the title of Vice President (for more information about Applied Process we would suggest our list of the largest commercial heat treaters in North America, Applied Process and their parent company are in the 7th position http://www.themonty.com/project/largest-north-american-commercial-heat-treats-august-2020/ ). Steven is now Vice President of Tri-City Heat Treat in Rock Island, IL. We have this photo of part of the Tri City team which we took a couple of years back during a visit.

ED Industries in MO, USA did something relatively unusual recently, they went from absolutely no in house heat treating to a state of the art heat treatment department. The company makes high end automotive components and very recently they installed a heat treat area all revolving around vacuum furnaces. In Italy we see that a company by the name of Lincotek Additive has just installed a new vacuum furnace; “Lincotek Additive has installed a high-vacuum furnace and a validated heat treatment process specifically designed for 3D printed titanium parts in its Trento, Italy Additive Production Center. The company says the installations complete its state-of-the-art additive manufacturing medical device facility, helping to triple its capacity for thermal treatment at its Northern Italy site. Lincotek has been using additive manufacturing since 2006, with more than 500,000 parts produced in that time and processes following the ISO 13485 quality management standard. To continue providing high-quality additive services, the company has enhanced its heat treatment capabilities to deal with reactive materials like titanium, while also adding a range of instruments ‘essential for understanding and mastering AM powder metallurgy.”

Remember the press release from SECO WARWICK back in early June about Youngstown Tool & Die buying a couple of vacuum furnaces? Well in case you don’t here is the original press release and we now have a photo of the first furnace rolling in the door. Youngstown is located in Youngstown, Ohio, USA. “Increased capabilities. Increased throughput. Increased customer quality. These are the attributes behind Youngstown Tools & Die’s decision to upgrade their existing atmosphere heat treatment capabilities to new high-pressure gas quench (HPGQ) vacuum furnaces from SECO/VACUUM, a SECO/WARWICK Group company. It’s all part of the company’s big upgrade and expansion plans. Youngstown specializes in manufacturing aluminum extrusion dies since 1961 and because of demand, is moving into a larger facility in their Ohio community to accommodate increased production needs. One of the 2 Vector furnaces ordered in January was made available as part of SVT’s VIP program for fast delivery, while the other is scheduled to ship later in the year.”

To round things out for this week we have this photo from VAS (Vacuum & Atmosphere Services) in the UK. VAS is the Ipsen rep in the UK and also probably the largest supplier of heat treating services and products in the company. “The Monty” had been scheduled to spend some time with the company this fall but due to COVID-19 this visit will have to take place another time. VAS is celebrating their 20th year in business and we have this photo of the shop as it now looks. To compliment this picture we have another one which we took back in 2013 when we visited the company.