R. Hueter Co. of Beverly, Mass., installed a heat-treating oven from Lucifer Furnaces. With a chamber size of 9 x 12 x 12 inches, the benchtop unit is insulated with 5 inches of both insulating firebrick and mineral-wool backup. Built for operation using inert atmosphere, 4 kW power allows fast heat-up to 1200°F. The oven is crafted with a continuously welded outer steel shell and gasketed roof plate. R. Hueter is a CNC machine shop specializing in male and female RF connector contact production.

R. Hueter plans to use the furnace primarily around 600°F for two-hour cycles to achieve a specific Rockwell hardness with small lots of Becu pins under a nitrogen atmosphere to reduce surface oxidation in order to achieve a scale-free, bright finish. The company chose a Honeywell DC2500 temperature controller with a soak timer to shut off heating elements at the end of a programmed cycle as well as a flow meter mounted and piped to the oven for easy connection to the atmosphere supply.