We start off the week with a very sad item, the passing of  Stacy Lee Morton, General Manager of Phoenix Heat Treating in Phoenix, Arizona, USA. This is the second COVID-19 related death in the North American heat treat industry that we have heard of in the past week. “Stacy Lee Morton, 61, of Gilbert, Ariz., passed away Thursday, July 16, 2020, in Chandler, Ariz., after a three-week-long battle with COVID-19. A celebration of life will be held at a later date. He was born Sept. 28, 1958, to Von and Margueritte Morton in Hutchinson, Kan. He grew up in Grand Island and graduated from Grand Island Senior High in 1977. He attended the University of Nebraska for photography. He previously worked at Hornady Manufacturing for 23 years, and was general manager with Phoenix Heat Treating at the time of his death. Stacy was a wonderful family man and an avid bow hunter for 50 years. He loved the woods; they were his sanctuary. He remained a loyal Cornhusker fan throughout the years and loved watching college football. He is survived by the love of his life, Sandra of Gilbert, Ariz.; his children, Nicole (Matthew) McClure of Phillips, Tasha Morton of Aurora, Kelly McCormick of Chandler, Ariz., Tanner Morton of Lincoln and Kevin McCormick of Gilbert, Ariz.; four precious grandchildren whom he adored, Harper, Ryne, Maddyn and Blake, and a fifth, Hunter, due in August; his parents, Von and Margueritte Morton of Chandler, Ariz.; his brother, Chris (Heidi) Morton of New Braunfels, Texas; his sister, Tonja Morton of New Albany, Ind.; several uncles and two nieces. He was preceded in death by a niece, Sommer Raye Morton.” Commercial heat treater Stack Metallurgical based in Portland, Oregon, USA has a new Business development Manager by the name of Shane Johnson at their Salt Lake facility. See where the company ranks in our list of the largest commercial heat treaters in North America https://themonty.com/project/largest-north-american-commercial-heat-treats-august-2020/ “We are pleased to announce that Shane Johnson has joined the Stack team as Business Development Manager based at our Aerospace Aluminum Processing (ASAP) facility in Salt Lake City.”

The world’s largest heat treater, UK based Bodycote released their 2020 interim results for the 6 months to June 30 2020. To very briefly sum up the company like every other one in our industry has been hard hit by the CORONA-19 virus but remains profitable due to a number of factors including cost cutting. As an example of cost cutting and organizational changes this paragraph can be found in the statement. “The organisational restructuring that was announced in March has been accelerated and expanded. The closure of eighteen plants is underway, thirteen in Europe (ten Automotive and three Aerospace), four plants in the USA (three Automotive and one Aerospace) and one General Industrial plant in Eastern Europe. In contrast, three new greenfield facilities will open in H2, replacing outdated facilities that are part of the closures.” The complete report can be found at https://www.bodycote.com/

Last week we mentioned how Elk County Heat Treaters in St. Marys, PA, USA had suffered a fire (details below). We have been told that the cause of the fire was a subcontractor accidentally drilling into a high pressure oil line which basically created a flamethrower. Luckily no one was hurt and no customer product damaged. They are good people at Elk and we hope they are back in business as quickly as possible. “Multiple fire companies responded to a Thursday afternoon blaze which resulted in heavy damage to the Elk County Heat Treaters plant. Crews were dispatched at 1:16 p.m. to Battery Street in the Stackpole Complex in St. Marys. Upon arrival fire personnel encountered heavy some with some flames showing. They quickly established a water supply. Additional manpower from surrounding fire departments was called in due to the contents of the plant, specifically the large amounts of oil which is typical of what is found in heat treating plants. Tom Bauer, Crystal Fire Department spokesman, stated plant employees managed to shut down the equipment including a piece which had malfunctioned and was spraying oil thus causing the fire. Once that piece of equipment was shut down the fire died down. The fire caused heavy damage to the roof structure and minor water and smoke damage to the building. Firefighters and employees worked together to salvage most of the product inside the plant by covering it and saving it from damage.”

Remember a few weeks back we told you how Missouri Heat Treat was adding a new vacuum furnace? Well no need to remember as the original news item is below and we can now add a photo of the completed installation; “Missouri Heat Treat Adding Vacuum Furnace; Commercial heat treater Missouri Heat Treat in Wentzville, Ohio, USA is pretty excited about receiving a brand new “Mentor” vacuum furnace from Solar Manufacturing. Missouri Heat Treat has this to say about the new furnace; ” This investment represents a new development for MHT and an exciting future expansion of our processing capabilities”. By the way this is the second vacuum furnace Solar has shipped to Missouri in just the past few weeks. Missouri Heat Treat is part of a very elite group in North America in that they offer commercial heat treating and also build new furnaces through their parent company Unitherm Furnace, LLC. Others in this group include Solar Atmospheres/Solar Manufacturing, Thermal Specialties in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Vac Aero in Canada, ALD and AFC-Holcroft.”

From Solar Atmospheres of Western PA we have this press release;  “July 20, 2020 – Solar Atmospheres of Western PA celebrated thirteen years of AS9100 certification. Like the complexities of ever-changing customer needs, 2020 proves to be challenging businesses. Impacts to our daily routines, course of business, personal liberties, and even audit scopes bear a brunt of ushering in a new era. This new era is intricately woven with COVID-19, populous instability and intertwined with increasingly stringent standards, revised industry specifications, and customer requirements. 

Even with these new complexities, Solar passed this milestone for more than a decade of accreditation without any major findings. The live audit, which was conducted for the very first time, used a combination of email, telephone and video conferencing to grade Solar’s QMS, on recent aerospace work. The comprehensive review addressed recent events as risk and Solar’s response as effective. Melissa Gruszka, Quality Manager and recent edition to Solar Atmospheres of Western PA, states, “We have a great team that can pull together, under any circumstances, to get work done. Solar maintains the highest standards by keeping Safety, Quality, and Efficiency in check and our customers in the foreground. Solar exercises a proven value system, integral to society, and empowers people, shaping a bright future.”

We’re looking at a story down in Alabama, USA about a manufacturer with a large captive heat treater making the decision to outsource all of their heat treating requirements to a local commercial heat treater. This company moved from the northern USA back in 2018 to the lower cost area of AL and brought their heat treating with them. However things change and the plan is to sell off all of their older, Ipsen, straight through atmosphere furnaces. Not a great time to be selling off older equipment however it was probably written off the books years ago.  In Guelph, Ontario we see a number of used Induction systems at a company by the name of Roctel (a Linamar company) are part of an ongoing on line auction (probably it is redundant to say on-line auction-we think they all are these days). Looks like nice equipment and it should find a home pretty quickly.

And to round things out we have this really cool picture of a load of parts coming out of a salt bath at Akron Steel Treating in Ohio.