It’s hard to believe it all started in a garage.

When you think of U.S.-based thermal-processing providers, one of the names that immediately comes to mind is Paulo.

In what is becoming an annual April tradition, we’ll take a look at some significant industry events.

Metlab isn’t your typical commercial heat treater. Founded in 1928 as a manufacturer of aluminum spars for biplanes, the company is credited with the patent for the first drop-bottom gantry furnace.

Atmosphere thermal processing improves the properties of fabricated metals. Operations include annealing, brazing, sintering (for powdered metals, metal injection molding and additive manufacturing) and glass or ceramic-to-metal sealing.

Wisconsin Oven Corp. shipped an electrically heated horizontal-quench solution-treat system to an aerospace-industry supplier. The system has a maximum oven operating temperature of 1200°F and work-zone dimensions measuring 5 feet, 4 inches wide x 5 feet, 6 inches long x 5 feet, 4 inches high (above the rollers). It was designed to heat a 565-pound gross load, consisting of a mixture of aluminum and steel, to 1000°F, provide a soak at temperature and then quickly move the load into a quench tank.

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.

In today’s marketplace, from the start of a college education to the day we retire, change is inevitable. The science of heat treat has been around for over 100 years.

Bodycote, the world’s largest provider of heat-treatment and thermal-processing services, plans to open a new heat-treating facility in Elgin, Ill. The plant will include advanced heat-treating technologies such as low-pressure carburizing and carbonitriding, vacuum nitriding and ferritic nitrocarburizing, Bodycote’s proprietary Corr-I-Dur process and traditional carburizing of large parts. The facility, which is scheduled to be operational by late 2019, will support the automotive, agricultural, mining, construction and other manufacturing supply chains in the upper Midwest region.

L&L Special Furnace Co. Inc. received an order for a large retort box furnace that will be used for de-bindering ceramic composite pre-peg materials along with powder-metals processing and hot isostatic processing. The main function of the furnace is to remove all organics and other materials used in the product prior to placing in a high-fire vacuum chamber. The de-bindering process allows for a strong, lightweight finished part.