Top 3 Global Heat Treatment News Stories For the Week of March 10th 2025

Each week “The Monty Heat Treat News” looks back on our previous weeks heat treatment news stories to see which were the most popular-this is based upon feedback from our readers, traffic on our website and social media views.
 
What makes this interesting is that even after almost 30 years of publishing “The Monty” it is still hard to predict which items will attract the most attention. Items which we feel will be of enormous interest to our readers receive 1,000 views or less-others which we feel are less “interesting” will attract almost 10,000 views and comments. 
 
With this preamble out of the ways these are the 3 news items published by “The Monty” during the week starting March 10, 2025 which most interested our readers; 
 
“Vacuum Furnace Builder Receives Their 1,000th New Furnace Order; Furnace builder TAV just yesterday received orders for two new vacuum furnaces which means the company can now claim to have sold just over 1,000 new vacuum furnaces over the years-1,001 to be exact.
 
The news was received by Gord Montgomery of during a visit to the Italian furnace builder early yesterday-these orders cement the fact that the company is one of the largest vacuum furnace builders in the world.
 
During the visit we learned a great deal about the company including; size, sales figures, reach and its capabilities, all of which we will be sharing. In the meantime, we have these photos which show part of the R & D lab as well as two from the assembly area showing a vertical furnace almost ready to ship to an aerospace customer and a large horizontal furnace destined for a US customer.”
 
“Vacuum Heat Treater Finds Business to Be Strong; Founded in the 1970’s commercial heat treater “Vacuum S.P.A.” in Verdello, Italy has survived recessions, foreign wars and the ups and downs that effect all businesses and at the end of the day has continued to grow and prosper.
 
In 2023 the company was acquired by Germany based “Haertha Hardening Industries” and under their ownership the company has continued to grow.
 
Yesterday Gord Montgomery of “The Monty Heat Treat News” had the chance to visit the company and this is what we learned;
 
This location is one of four that “Haertha” has in Italy and total sales for the four locations is roughly 18 million Euros making them one of the largest commercial heat treaters in the country (more about the relative size of Italian commercial heat treaters later). Editors Note; As a side note to this story “Haertha” with 13 locations around Europe, 500 employees and annual sales of roughly 70 million Euros is probably the third largest commercial heat treater in Europe.
 
Our host for this visit “Mr. Fabiano Peli”, Managing Director and 40 year veteran of commercial heat treating in Italy was an incredible host who showed us his 6 TAV vacuum furnaces (4 hardening and 2 tempering) and 5 plasma nitriding furnaces, one of which was added just a few short months ago-most of the furnaces and Plasma Nitriding furnaces can be seen in these pictures.
 
The firm has 35 employees, NADCAP certification and almost equally services the aerospace, defense, automotive and “general industry” fields. It brings joy to our hearts that this location works 3 shifts a day, 6 days a week with the 7th day reserved for “overflow” as required. Few commercial heat treaters around the world can boast of this these days, hence our headline.
 
We should also mention “Giuseppe Bonvegna”, Production Manager who is quite obviously very proud of the company.
 
Also included in these photos you can see “Mr. Jan Massholder” and “Mr. Marco Baretti” of “TAV” who organized this tour.
 
This location is a fine example of commercial heat treating and we will follow this up tomorrow with a very good example of a gear manufacturer who spared no expense when it came to bringing their heat treating needs in house.”
 
“Cambridge Heat Treating 1982-2025; For 43 years commercial heat treater Cambridge Heat Treating in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada has been a mainstay of the Canadian heat treat industry and one of the larger players in the Canadian market. Founded by Bob Robbins in 1982, the company has thrived and prospered over the years but alas the world keeps changing and 2025 marks the final year for the company. While the company continues to operate, most of the equipment has been sold and the firm is slowly winding down.
 
3 generations of “The Monty” have worked closely with the Robbins family and we will truly miss this rock of the industry.
 
The summary below printed by “The Monty” summarizes the history of the company at their 40th anniversary in 2021.
 
Cambridge Heat Treating Celebrates 40th Anniversary; Our good friends at Cambridge Heat Treating in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada just celebrated their 40th anniversary of being in business-a significant milestone for any company. Founded by Bob Robbins, the company has remained a very viable, healthy business under the guidance of Peter Robbins and his sister Cheryl Mortimer who are shown in this picture along with the matriarch of the family. For more details about Cambridge Heat Treating you can see a news item we did earlier this year where “The Monty Heat Treat News” visited Cambridge to do a company profile.
 
We at “The Monty Heat Treat News” have always found it fascinating to see the start up of a commercial heat treater and how it grows, changes and evolves over the years, this is the story of a fairly typical North American commercial heat treat, Cambridge Heat Treating. We say typical because like many in the industry it is family owned and run and in terms of sales it would be considered average or slightly above average by North American standards. The original founder was Bob Robbins and over the years his sons Don, Peter and daughter Cheryl have all had a role in the business. This is the timeline of the business combined with photos showing the history.
  • Cambridge Heat Treating founded in 1982 by Bob Robbins, in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada
  • Small space (part time, days only)
  • Two son’s help-Don works full time, Peter runs afternoon shift after school
  • Out grow rented space, purchase 1 acre and build new plant on Cowansview Road
  • Upgrade to vacuum furnaces (8 in total)
  • Install lab & micro hardness equipment
  • Upgrade from pack carburize to gas (nitrogen/Methanol)
  • Upgrade to pit furnace carb & oil quench & also nitriding up to 12’ long
  • Upgrade to 3 batch IQ furnaces
  • Add plasma nitriding
  • Add shot blast & paint 5,000 square feet-2 wheelabrator table blast, 1 blast booth & 2 cabinet blasters
  • Switch from Nitrogen/Methanol to Endothermic generator
  • 1992 Buy out competitor (Preston Heat Treat) which includes 6 acres of land
  • Refurbish Preston HT which means a 40’ shot blast room, 40’ paint room, 12,000 square foot addition and a 9th vacuum furnace with new cooling tower. Also included in these ambitions plans were 7 batch IQ furnaces, a very large batch for gears, 2 endo generators, 2 more car bottom furnaces and additional shot blast room.
  • 2007 amalgamate 2 facilities into 1 on 6 acres of land.   Over the next few years changes include upgrading all of the vacuum furnaces, adding an 8’ diameter Wheelabrator, adding a 9,000 square foot two story office to the building, adding a dual base Rubig plasma nitriding system and a zero flow gas nitriding system from SECO/WARWICK
  • 2021 Upgrades and additions continue to this day

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