As business investment in the Mexican manufacturing sector continues to grow by leaps and bounds heat treatment in the country both captive and commercial also continues to grow. We will qualify this statement by adding that the vast bulk of this heat treatment is in  “atmosphere” heat treating and to qualify this still further much is related to the auto and truck industries. All of this is a roundabout way of saying that vacuum heat treatment in Mexico has always been very limited mainly because there is little aerospace, medical or tool and die work in the country.

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Which makes it rather odd that recently we have run across several planned or installed vacuum furnace projects in the country. The most recent install that we are familiar with just took place at the Eifeler division of Voestalpine High Performance Metals, Mexico in Monterrey.  This location has just finished installing their second heat treat furnace which means that Voestalpine High Performance Mexico now has a total of 5 vacuum furnaces.

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This most recent install has working dimensions of 600 X 600 X 900 (24″ X 24″ X 36″), a weight capacity of 800kg (1760 pounds) and quenching pressure of 10 Bar using Nitrogen. The furnace can be seen in this picture along with Mr. Paul Cavanagh (CEO and Regional Manager, Mexico), Jose Manuel Robledo (Managing Director, Mexico) and Mr. Tonatiuh Flores (General Manager for Coatings and Thermo-Tech).

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We will shortly have news about another vacuum installation in Mexico, a brand new facility which when open later this year will boast anywhere up to 6 vacuum units. Our readers can also look forward to several profiles of large, captive heat treaters in Mexico in just two short weeks when Jordan and Gord Montgomery of “The Monty Heat Treat News” visit the Querétaro, Mexico area to attend to the upcoming ASM heat treatment show. 

 

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