It’s extremely difficult to encapsulate a 102-year-old company in just one page. It’s an even taller task when the company in question has over 675 U.S. patents, 75 industry-recognized trademarks and 250,000 systems installed worldwide.

But a good place to start when profiling Surface Combustion is its Allcase® batch integral-quench furnace. Developed over 65 years ago and continuously improved since, Allcase is the industry standard for batch processes. These include annealing, carbonitriding, ferritic nitrocarburizing, carburizing, hardening and normalizing.

Surface Combustion has been manufacturing vacuum furnace equipment for over 50 years. This expanding product line includes the Power Convection® single-chamber vacuum furnace with 2- and 6-bar quenching capability. The company’s multi-chamber furnace family includes two-, three- and six-chamber (Cloverleaf) configurations with separate high-heat, low-pressure carburizing and high-pressure quench (up to 20-bar) chambers. The VacuDraw® vacuum temper furnace completes the line and includes sizes ranging from 36” x 48” x 36” to 60” x 90” 60”.

You would be remiss if you didn’t mention Surface Combustion’s line of atmosphere generators. From RX® endothermic gas to economical DX® exothermic gas, this longtime MTI member offers reliable, easy-to-maintain and economical on-site atmosphere generation.

Over its long and storied history, Surface Combustion has produced many custom thermal-processing solutions and processes to meet challenging quality and production requirements for different materials and processes. Engineered-to-order designs include pit, rotary retort, rotary hearth, pusher tray, mesh belt, cast belt, roller hearth, screw conveyor, box and car bottom.

Surface Combustion has become much more than just an equipment manufacturer. The company offers in-house technical support and a large force of customer-service engineers. Its experienced field-service engineers, product managers and controls experts help customers by remotely troubleshooting problems or dispatching a customer-service engineer to a plant location to inspect, test, troubleshoot and/or assist in the timely maintenance and restart of equipment. 

Surface Combustion also provides equipment maintenance and upgrades through a broad range of retrofit packages in an effort to improve product quality, increase productivity and reduce fuel consumption. Maintenance and rebuilding services include: replacement of refractory lining; updating control and combustion systems; installing burner equipment; adding direct- and indirect-fired burners; electric/gas heating conversions; energy-efficient process improvements; and increased productivity modifications.

Surface Combustion’s corporate headquarters is in Maumee, Ohio, and the company boasts a 66,000-square-foot manufacturing facility and aftermarket parts warehouse in Waterville, Ohio, that went through an extensive expansion in 2014.

There’s a reason Surface Combustion has been around for over a century. The company’s ability to adapt to market and technological changes has been vital to its longevity. As for the future, Surface Combustion will continue to research new processes, develop better thermal-processing systems, and set standards for the industry.

Visit www.surfacecombustion.com for more information.