Hercules Heat Treating Corp. is all about continuity. The company is operating out of the same location and is still owned by the same family since its founding in 1949.

Joseph J. Rizzo, along with first cousins Angelo and Joseph G. Rizzo, started the Brooklyn, N.Y., company almost 70 years ago. Hercules Heat Treating remains owned and operated by several new generations of the Rizzo family. Today, Anthony I. Rizzo and Joseph J. Rizzo, two of the founders’ sons, run the company. A third-generation member, Anthony P. Rizzo, has also joined the business, which never moved from its original site.

Hercules Heat Treating got its start by heat treating tools and dies in the 1950s. Eventually, however, the company transitioned to processing aerospace parts in the 1960s. And when Hercules Heat Treating started aerospace processing, the company never quit. In fact, aerospace is the only industry the MTI member serves today.

The company began with neutral and case hardening salt baths for steels and salt baths for heat treating aluminum. Today, Hercules Heat Treating still heat treats with salt but with much larger baths to offer marquenching services. And even though it’s an older technology that is rare today, salt-bath heat treating is vital to this heat-treater’s success. The method aids in keeping all parts straight and true.

In addition to salt, the company also utilizes vacuum gas-pressure furnaces (2-bar and 10-bar) and vacuum oil-quench furnaces to process aerospace components. It performs aluminum heat treatment with a drop-quench furnace (water or glycol) and multiple aging ovens, which together deliver large-volume production.

Heat treatment is not all Hercules Heat Treating does. One of the company’s specialties is fixture straightening of high-strength parts. This capability affords customers the ability to leave less material on high-strength (280-300 ksi) parts for the heat-treat operation. As a result, the customer has less material to machine off after heat treatment when the material is hard (HRC 52-55).

With the help of a full-time, on-site metallurgical engineer, Hercules Heat Treating also performs its own hardness, microhardness, metallography and tensile testing.  This is beneficial because all testing is performed in-house, ultimately saving time for customers.

But if one thing is clear, it’s the importance of the aerospace industry to Hercules Heat Treating’s success. The company processes parts for the F-15, F-16, F-18 and F-35 (JSF) military programs, as well as 737 through 787 Boeing commercial programs.

Visit www.herculesht.com for more information on Hercules Heat Treating.