An ongoing story at “The Monty Heat Treat News” has been the closing of one of the oldest commercial heat treaters in North America, the Robert Wooler Company in Dresher, PA and the auctioning of the equipment which was concluded just this week. We are awaiting news about what all of the equipment went for but preliminary reports have at least some of the equipment being sold for far over reasonable pricing. As an example an older Surface Combustion Unidraw 36 X 48 being sold for over $60K when new it is only a little over $100K? We think bidders were getting caught up in the heat of battle.

“February 2021 Posting; Robert Wooler Company Closing-Heat Treat Furnaces Being Auctioned; December 29th, 2020 we mentioned that one of the oldest commercial heat treats in North American would be closing their doors at the end of the year. The company did indeed close and the equipment will be auctioned off March 19th to the 25th.

“Robert Wooler Company Closing-The End of an Era; It is truly with regret that we mention the closing of one of the oldest commercial heat treating companies in North America, the Robert Wooler Company of Dresher, Pennsylvania, USA. Founded in 1923 the company has a very impressive history which includes NADCAP certification which allowed the firm to service many of the local aerospace companies. At its peak a few years back it had over 40 employees making it a larger than average commercial heat treater. Even recently the company employed 25 employees and was a viable business, however a number of factors including the difficulty in finding good experienced employees lead to the owner deciding to close it down. The last work is being accepted this week and the company will continue to process customers’ parts through at least the first quarter of 2021 with the equipment being auctioned off the second quarter of 2021. As a footnote to this story we will add that as far as we can tell the oldest commercial heat treater in the USA is Commercial Steel Treating Company in Michigan started in 1916 by Anthony and Ralph Hoensheid.”

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