Baker Furnace, a division of Thermal Product Solutions, installed a quench tank for a commercial heat treater as part of its aftermarket services. The company had two quench tanks (one hot water and one cold water) and three drop-bottom furnaces and needed a third quench tank to optimize quench loads per day. The quench tank has three impellers capable of 27,000 GM on a 15,000-gallon tank. This style of agitation allows for thick, large castings to dissipate heat faster.

Industrial Heating, in cooperation with the Metal Treating Institute and the MTI Educational Foundation, invite you to nominate an MTI member company for the 2019 Commercial Heat Treater of the Year award. You can nominate any company you feel is qualified – including your own if you are a commercial heat treater. This honor will be given to one MTI commercial heat treater that demonstrates they are “making a positive impact on their community and their industry.”

Commercial heat treater Specialty Steel Treating of Fraser, Mich., invested in an AFC-Holcroft UBQ (universal batch quench) furnace and a UBT (universal batch temper) annealing furnace as part of a larger multiyear equipment standardization program intended to replace older equipment provided by another supplier. The UBQ and UBT furnaces are near duplicates to equipment recently provided by AFC-Holcroft as part of the same program. Delivery of the UBT is expected in the second quarter of 2019 to the site on Malyn Road in Fraser, with the UBQ to follow in the third quarter to the Commerce Road plant in Fraser.

Solar Atmospheres ordered a 12-foot-long car-bottom vacuum furnace with advanced pumping system and rapid cooling capability for its Greenville, S.C., facility. The 144-inch-deep x 54-inch-wide x 54-inch-high horizontal furnace is capable of processing loads up to 50,000 pounds. Manufactured by sister company Solar Manufacturing, installation is scheduled for early 2020. The furnace design features a vacuum pumping system capable of achieving an ultimate vacuum of 1 x 10^-6 Torr, which is crucial to the processing of titanium and other high-grade alloys.

As the economy continues to grow over the next 10-15 years, it is important for your heat-treating division to have three key elements:

Canadian commercial heat treater Thermetco expanded its heat-treatment production capability with the purchase of an AFC-Holcroft UBQ (universal batch quench) furnace and a UBT (universal batch temper) furnace. The equipment, which was delivered in the first quarter of 2018, was installed and commissioned at Thermetco’s new manufacturing facility in Chateauguay, Quebec. The furnaces will be used for general heat treating and offer the capability of providing metallurgical processes such as carburizing, carbonitriding, annealing, tempering and stress relieving.

SECO/WARWICK delivered a high-pressure gas-quench vacuum furnace to MIHEU, a commercial heat treater in Slovenia.

IMT recently welcomed H&S Heat Treating and its sister company, Nitrex Metal Technologies Inc. (NMT), to its family of companies.