As a customer technical-support metallurgist, one question that customers ask over and over is whether their precipitation-hardenable steel is annealed or aged.

Solar Manufacturing shipped a vacuum furnace to a company in Virginia that services the tool-and-die industry. The furnace, which has a load weight capacity up to 250 pounds and a maximum operating temperature of 2400°F (1315°C), will be used for solution annealing, aging and brazing. It includes a graphite-insulated hot zone and the SolarVac Essentials control system.

After spending two years as a retail sales associate and five years handling industrial equipment telephone support calls, it became abundantly clear that the experience one creates for their customer can be even more important than having the fast/easy solution.

Aluminum manufactured products of various sizes have been steadily replacing steel in industrial designs such as automobiles, airplanes, appliances and many more applications due to the light weight and flexibility of aluminum.

During World War II, there was a need to heat treat large tank parts for use in the North African theater. Cincinnati, Ohio-based Derrick Company, a local brick-maker, devised a way to use their brick-making kilns as heat-treating ovens.

Wisconsin Oven Corp. shipped two industrial ovens to United Tool & Die Co. of West Hartford, Conn.

A light industrial furnace line has been designed for smaller-scale operations such as testing facilities, laboratories and small industrial plants.

Ovens designed for age-hardening processes must have precise temperature uniformity, proper airflow, energy efficiency, low maintenance and provide consistent metallurgical results for a variety of part and workload shapes and sizes.