For heat treat operations, use of hydrogen comes with questions about price-point, safety, and storage or delivery. Read this case study to learn how a manufacturer with in-house heat treat, Riverhawk Company, contended with these questions and decided to meet stringent production requirements for pivot bearings by leveraging on-site hydrogen and a hydrogen furnace.
This original content article was written by Marie Pompili, a freelance writer, for Heat Treat Today's May 2023 Sustainable Heat Treat Technologies print edition.
For companies using hydrogen furnaces for heat treating operations, questions always surface surrounding the provision of the necessary hydrogen. Should we have it delivered in cylinders? Do we have the room outdoors for a large storage tank? Can we generate it ourselves? For Randy Gorman, maintenance supervisor at Riverhawk Company, the overriding question is always, “How do we handle hydrogen safely?” The ultimate solution the company chose was the installation of an on-site hydrogen generator. How and why the in-house heat treater came to that conclusion is an interesting story.
Making a History
Riverhawk staff (L to R): Spencer Roose, Flex Pivots Manager; Randy Gorman, Maintenance Supervisor; and Josh Suppa, Pivot Department Engineer Source: Nel Hydrogen
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Located in New Hartford, NY, Riverhawk Company was established in 1993 as a value-added provider of hydraulic tooling. The company quickly grew from a “buy and assemble” operation to a manufacturer with 14 CNC machine tools, 21 conventional machines, and all the necessary peripheral devices, tools, and software. Through a period of smart acquisitions and the development of new product lines, Riverhawk became one of the leading manufacturers of tensioners, powertrain couplings, and accessories for the turbomachinery industry; the instrumentation product line of legacy torque and vibrations measuring instruments; and the Free- Flex® pivot bearings, which are very well known in high performance industry sectors.
Pivot Bearing Line Requires Improved Heat Treat Abilities
The Free-Flex® pivot bearing line is the focus in this heat treat/hydrogen story. Riverhawk purchased this line from Goodrich in 2004. It is the same product that was developed by Bendix more than 60 years ago. In fact, many of the original part numbers are the same, and the manufacturer strives to maintain the quality and performance characteristics that Bendix established more than six decades ago. Many of the manufacturer’s clients have been purchasing flex pivots for long-running applications, some of which are 25 to 50 years old.
Cantilevered-double ended thick spring. Riverhawk purchased the Free-Flex® pivot bearing line from Goodrich. Many of the company’s clients, in a wide range of critical industries, have been purchasing flex pivots for long-running applications. Source: Nel Hydrogen
If a product line could talk, the flex pivots could share some tales and compelling accounts about all it has seen and done in the world’s most critical and sophisticated applications — many in the military, commercial aerospace, outer space, industrial robotics, medical, clean rooms, information technology, semiconductors, and many more. In all of these challenging sectors, clients are well-known and demand exacting results.
Shortly after integrating the pivot line into its existing production processes, it became clear that the company needed to improve its heat treat function. After researching several options, Riverhawk purchased a new Camco batch hydrogen furnace.
The pivot line consists of flat springs crossed at 90° and supporting cylindrical counter-rotating sleeves. Standard Free-Flex® pivots are made from 410 and 420 stainless steel; however, certain special material compositions include 455 stainless, Inconel 718, titanium, and maraging steel. During the manufacturing process for the flexure bearings, Riverhawk uses the batch atmosphere heat treat furnace to braze the springs to the body halves using a braze alloy, and to simultaneously heat treat certain components in the assembly. The atmosphere used for the heat treating and brazing is a 100% hydrogen atmosphere — chosen because it is universally applicable to all the different metallurgy used for the flex pivots.
The Tension: Delivered vs. On-site Hydrogen?
The use of a batch atmosphere heat treat furnace requires that the hydrogen atmosphere be flushed from the furnace with inert nitrogen when a finished batch is unloaded and a new load is added. Likewise, the furnace must return to inert atmosphere again with nitrogen after the new load is added, and before hydrogen is again injected; hence, hydrogen is used in a batch-wise fashion. The function of the hydrogen atmosphere is to prevent oxidation of the metal surfaces, and to promote fluxing of the braze alloy during the thermal cycle.
Until 2009, Riverhawk used hydrogen-filled cylinders to provide hydrogen to their batch heat treat furnace. Each run of the furnace would use several cylinders of hydrogen. Increases in production rates required careful management of hydrogen gas supply to the furnace. Running out of hydrogen mid-run could sacrifice a whole batch of nearly completed parts.
In 2009, the company elected to move away from hydrogen cylinders and transition to a hydrogen supply approach less disruptive to their production process. The choices were either bulk stored hydrogen or on-site hydrogen generation. After extensive consideration, they chose a model H2 hydrogen generator from Nel Hydrogen because the zero-inventory hydrogen generation saved the company money as compared to the cost of permitting, construction, and compliance for bulk stored hydrogen approaches.
The approach that was not chosen — delivered, stored bulk hydrogen — was unappealing for several reasons. Chief among these were the capital cost of the hydrogen storage infrastructure, the requirement for permitting for the necessary hydrogen storage, the accompanying project schedule risk for permitting, the continuous compliance issues with stored hydrogen, and the price volatility of delivered hydrogen that would have made cost accounting more difficult.
“The state and local regulations were likely necessary; however, there was a lot to wade through to become compliant,” said Gorman.
Finding the Best Way
Fast forward 14 years to today and Riverhawk is once again analyzing its approach to handling its hydrogen requirement.
“The H2 model generator that we have has served us well for 14 years, several years beyond the typical life of a cell stack,” said Gorman. “But we need more capacity and redundancy due to the increased demand for our Free-Flex® products and to cost-effectively mitigate the risk of a hydrogen generator issue, leaving us without the use of our furnace.”
The company decided to go with a model H4 hydrogen generator from Nel Hydrogen, which doubles their capacity with two cell stacks and the capacity for three if and when needed. The new system features the same footprint as the former H2 model, which is important to them, and they are even gaining floor space as they will eliminate the number of cylinders formerly stored nearby. The additional free space to move about also appeals to Gorman’s top mandate for safety.
Josh Suppa — engineer of the Pivot Department at Riverhawk — has had hands-on experience with this particular generator series (pictured above). “The maintenance of it is easy, and if there ever is a rare issue, Nel is quick to respond either in person or if it’s something that they can walk us through, they take all the time we need to resolve the matter and get us back online quickly. From a product line and customer satisfaction perspective, we cannot take the risk of our heat treat operation to go down for long. It’s that integral to our success. It’s essential, really, and one of our core competencies.”
Riverhawk will soon use a model H4 hydrogen generator from Nel Hydrogen, which doubles their capacity with two cell stacks and the capacity for three if and when needed. The new system features the same footprint as the former H2 (pictured here). Source: Nel Hydrogen
Choosing On-Site Hydrogen Generation
Looking back on the initial decision to generate on site, one of the important issues that Riverhawk and Nel personnel had to determine was the most cost-effective configuration of the hydrogen generator and ancillaries to supply the hydrogen required for thermal processing. Had the manufacturer used a continuous furnace such as a belt furnace, then the calculations would have been easy, as the flow rate required would have been level and continuous. Instead, the batch furnace required more complex calculation because the hydrogen flow rate varies depending on the stage of the furnace cycle: fast hydrogen flow to fill the furnace, then slow to maintain the atmosphere, then no flow during parts removal and during loading. Additionally, there were many factors that affected the precise furnace cycles employed, including the size of the pivots in each batch, the number of parts loaded, and the specific metallurgy of the flex pivots in the batch. Overall, the cycle times can vary between 6 and 12 hours per batch.
It is important to seek out a knowledgeable hydrogen partner in this endeavor to specify exactly what’s needed, no more and no less. For heat treat applications, users generally would want compact equipment, extreme hydrogen purity, load following, near-instant on and instant off, and considerable hydrogen pressure that make it flexibly suited for a variety of thermal processes.
By combining on-site hydrogen generation with a small amount of in-process hydrogen surge storage if needed, on-site hydrogen generation can be used to meet the needs of batch processes, such as batch furnaces. By carefully choosing generation rate and pressure, and surge storage vessel volume, the process can provide maximum process flexibility while minimizing the amount of hydrogen actually stored.
In practice, client priorities such as minimum hydrogen storage, or lowest system capital cost, or highest degree of expandability, or least amount of space occupied can be met by choosing the specific hydrogen generator capacity and surge storage system employed for any particular production challenge.
In this case study, the optimum solution chosen was based on lowest capital cost and operating cost (including maintenance) while preserving the maximum possible expandability for production increases, and safety. These sound like common reasons and may be yours as well. Success continues at Riverhawk with the arrival of the new H4 generator in the coming weeks.
About the Author: Marie Pompili is a freelance writer and the owner of Gorman Pompili Communications, LLC.
If you are considering making the leap to laser heat treat, buckle up. Nic Willis, metallurgist/heat treat supervisor of Emerson Professional Tools — RIDGID® TOOLS, and recipient of Heat TreatToday's 40 Under 40 recognition in 2020, shares how he led the company to look at laser hardening for some of their induction heat treated projects. It’s a fascinating story that includes the decision-making process, the transition itself, and the continued implementation of this technology.
Below, you can watch the video, listen to the podcast by clicking on the audio play button, or read an edited transcript.
The following transcript has been edited for your reading enjoyment.
Doug Glenn: We’ve interviewed you before, and it’s good to have you back. You are one of our 40 Under 40 Class of 2020 winners. Give a brief history about yourself.
Class of 2020, 40 Under 40 Source: Heat Treat Today
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Nic Willis: I’ve been in the heat treat world for about 5 years now. I’m the metallurgist and heat treat supervisor at RIDGID® TOOLS in Elyria, Ohio. We have a captive heat treating department where we specialize in neutral hardening, carburizing, carbonitriding, salt tempering. We do some induction hardening, vacuum hardening, and flame hardening, as well. There are a lot of heat treating applications at RIDGID, and it’s pretty exciting.
The Project: Bringing Induction Hardening In-House (02:56)
Doug Glenn: RIDGID is a manufacturer with in-house heat treat. You do some outsourcing, but for the most part, you do your own heat treating.
Let’s talk a bit about your recent decision to change from one type of heat treating over to another type of heat treating.
Nic Willis: This particular project started when I was tasked with finding a way to bring an outsourced process in-house to our facility. That process was the induction hardening of a particular product line. I began by reaching out to different machine builders of induction hardening equipment.
One thing I noticed when I started to get some quotes was how much the tooling cost was going to be and what percentage of the project that was going to account for. Being somewhat new to induction hardening at the time, I was really taken aback.
We had also seen some quality issues with cracking of these components. I just happened to listen to an episode of Heat TreatRadio that had to do with laser hardening. After I got done listening to the podcast, I reached out to Laser Hard, Inc. We started a conversation about learning more about laser hardening and if it was a fit for this particular product line.
Did you consider any other possibilities besides bringing an induction process in or laser?
Nic Willis: It was pretty much between those two technologies. These components, like a lot of parts that are going to make use of either of these two technologies, have one area we want to keep ductile and then another (contact) area we want to have wear resistance. These particular components will get furnace-hardened first, and then they go out for the selective hardening process.
Induction vs. Laser Heat Treating (06:48)
Doug Glenn: What did the rest of the process look like? How long did it take, who was involved, what were some of the key questions that needed to be answered before a final decision could be made?
Nic Willis: For this particular application, it just so happened that the specifications that we required were a good fit for the laser process, namely case depth. One of the limitations of laser hardening versus induction is you’re not able to get as deep of a case with laser as you can with induction. For these components, that wasn’t really a factor. So, there was some initial vetting that went on.
After that, we sent some sample parts to Laser Hard that they would have processed. It took some testing on that end to get their parameters set up, and they cut up a lot of parts to check the case depth. Once we got that dialed in, the parts would’ve come back here to RIDGID where we did some life testing. We have a test apparatus that we use that basically cycles these parts to failure. From there, it turned out that these met or exceeded the life of the induction hardened components. At that point, we would have updated the drawings and approved laser hardening as a substitute process.
The Cost (08:34)
"[The project] needs to be somewhat, or at least, cost neutral." Source: Unsplash.com/Alexander MillsDoug Glenn: Do you have any sense or was there any calculation done of what you anticipated the cost savings would be?
Nic Willis: I can’t get into any specifics; but in order to get any type of substitution like this off the ground, it needs to be somewhat, or at least, cost neutral.
Doug Glenn: How about the maintenance of the equipment — laser versus induction?
Nic Willis: Like I mentioned before, the maintenance of the coils themselves is something that you don’t have to account for with laser. Any type of specialized tooling for laser is going to be on the work-holding end of the spectrum which can be adapted after the fact to improve cycle times and things like that.
Laser does not make use of a quenchant. The parts self-quench, meaning that the core material doesn’t get heated up and is cool enough to quench out the heated area. Anybody that’s familiar with induction knows that the quenching process can be kind of messy and needs to be contained.
The Winner: Laser Heat Treating (10:30)
Doug Glenn: Those are all good additional cost savings items. Laser won the day on this one. Have there been other parts that you’ve looked at potentially going to laser but decided to not do it?
Nic Willis: Yes. In Elyria, the parts that we make are our pressing tools to make our pipe wrenches and threading machines. With the threading machines, there is a lot of gearing. We’ve looked at some of our gears that we flame hardened, and they’re a lot bigger. It’s just not a good fit with laser. You would have to go tooth by tooth, which is going to really increase your cycle time. In those parts, you run into that issue with case step requirement.
Doug Glenn: Can you tell us what laser hardening is?
Nic Willis: It’s a form of selective hardening where you want some of the part to have a hard case for wear resistance. The rest of the part keeps its ductility. In this case, you’re using a laser — rather than an induction field or a flame — to heat up this specific area that you want to harden.
Doug Glenn: You mentioned “part holding.” I don’t want you to give away more than you can and want to respect all the propriety measures. Is this something where you’re spinning a part and laser, so you’re just actually lasering a specific area?
Nic Willis: Correct.
Doug Glenn: I know with flame hardening they’re actually spinning the part as it goes — or they can spin the part. Is laser something you can do that with?
Nic Willis: Yes, absolutely. But then you’re starting to talk about additional costs to build a specialized machine to do the hardening process. For me, I wanted something “off the shelf,” for lack of a better term. I didn’t want a super specialized piece of equipment.
Doug Glenn: In the decision-making process itself, did you and the team require to see laser hardening be done other places or did you work basically just with Laser Hard and make sure they could prove the process? How much of a pioneer were you willing to be? Were you willing to be one of the first people to ever do laser heat treating?
"[W]e sent some sample parts to Laser Hard that they would have processed." Source: Laser HardNic Willis: There is a company that is pretty close to Laser Hard, and some of their products are laser hardened (it’s not the same but it’s a similar application). I was aware of them. Laser hardening has been around for a long time. I think what’s made it more attractive nowadays is that the laser equipment itself has become more affordable. It’s not a new process, by any means. I would assume that it’s been around since lasers have been around.
Success with Laser Heat Treating for RIDGID® (16:40)
Doug Glenn: You’ve been through the decision-making process, and you’ve got it up and running. I assume you’re happy with what’s going on now. You’ve got it down now, and it’s a relatively smooth process?
Nic Willis: Absolutely. We’re looking at bringing the process in-house in the next few years. I’d like to say that it’s a dream of mine to see it done here on site in Elyria.
Doug Glenn: Looking back on the whole process of moving from wanting to bring it in-house, to deciding to go with laser — is there anything you would’ve done differently now, knowing what you know?
Nic Willis: That’s a good question. I think one thing that I really learned through the process was anytime you’re switching from a tried-and-true process to something new, whatever your reasons may be, it takes some time to get people on board. [blocktext align="left"]I think one thing that I really learned through the process was anytime you’re switching from a tried-and-true process to something new, whatever your reasons may be, it takes some time to get people on board.[/blocktext]
Like I mentioned earlier, we were setting the parameters with the laser, doing the metallurgical testing, doing the life testing — it wasn’t a bang, bang, bang type thing. More and more people were brought into the discussion. The commercial side has to be addressed, as well. There are always some question marks when you’re moving from one supplier to another, and that took some time.
I don’t know if I’d do anything different, but I’d tell myself to be a little more patient, given the opportunity.
Doug Glenn: That’s probably the great lesson, honestly. It does take patience and a little perseverance because you’ve got to prove the process. You’ve got to prove it, not only metallurgically, like you said, but you’ve got to prove it commercially.
Nic Willis: From the conceptual stage to when we actually were putting parts into the field, it was probably about two years.
Doug Glenn: When you first started, how long did you think it was going to take?
Nic Willis: I thought it would be relatively quick!
Doug Glenn: Right. A 6-month process turns into 2 years, easily, huh?
Nic Willis: Exactly.
Doug Glenn: Are there any other thoughts regarding the whole process of that transition or laser heat treating or anything that you’d like to share?
Nic Willis: A challenge that I’ve run into is you see success with one product line, and you want to see how far you can take it and expand it to these other product lines. We talked about how sometimes it’s not a good fit. I mentioned that with some of the gears and larger cylindrical-type components. I think induction definitely still has its place.
I’m working on some projects to bring some of our induction parts in-house. In these cases, based on case depth, part geometry, and things like that, induction, in some cases, is a better fit than laser. Although in this particular case, it made sense to switch from induction to laser, it’s not always a one-for-one type switch.
Doug Glenn: That’s excellent advice; you’ve got to take each part in its turn and figure out which is the best process for it.
About the expert:
Nicolas Willis is metallurgist/heat treat supervisor at Emerson Professional Tools — RIDGID® TOOLS. Nic is the metallurgical authority for all Emerson Professional Tool operations worldwide. He has been leading the modernization of the heat treatment department throughout the company, upgrading capital equipment and developing new processes to improve safety, increase throughput, and improve quality of RIDGID and Greenlee brand products. He was elected to the position of secretary of the Cleveland ASM chapter in 2020 and has served on the Research Committee of the Heat Treat Society.
An East Troy, WI, heat treat systems manufacturer announced the shipment of an electrically heated horizontal quench system to a manufacturer of products for the automotive industry, specifically for aluminum solution treatment.
Wisconsin Oven manufactured the system with a maximum temperature of 1,200°F and interior chamber dimensions of 2' x 2' x 2'. The system has the capacity to heat 450 pounds of aluminum parts plus the steel basket within 60 minutes. Temperature uniformity of +/- 10°F at set points 850°F and 1,050°F was verified with a nine point profile test prior to shipment.
This horizontal quench system provides a 15-second quench delay from when the door begins to open until the load is fully submerged in the tank. The quench is manual, where the operator pulls the load out of the oven and onto the quench elevator using a hook. "This horizontal quench system was designed with a manual quench which is a cost-effective option and still ensures there are no improperly processed parts," commented Doug Christiansen, senior application engineer at Wisconsin Oven. "The system also features foldable unload wheel rails to save on floor space.”
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In previous months, this series has explored the geometry of a tube, why radiant tubes matter, what happens inside the tube, and radiant tube control systems. For the first three installments, check out Heat Treat Today’s digital editions in November 2022, December 2022, and February 2023. For the month of May, we will continue our discussion of different modes of control for radiant tube burners.
This column is a Combustion Corner feature written by John Clarke, technical director at Helios Electric Corporation, and appeared in Heat Treat Today’s May 2023 Sustainable Heat Treat Technologiesprint edition.
If you have suggestions for radiant tube topics you’d like John to explore for future Technical Tuesdays, please email Bethany@heattreattoday.com.
John B. Clarke Technical Director Helios Electric Corporation Source: Helios Electric Corporation
High/low and on/off controls require different control strategies from a proportional mode of control. In all cases, we assume the temperature control will be provided by a proportional-integral-derivative loop (PID loop). The function can be provided by a stand-alone instrument or a PID function in a programmable or process controller. The PID algorithm looks not only at the temperature of the process as indicated by the control element (thermocouple or RTD) and compares it to the setpoint — but it also considers the offset and rate of change as well. When properly tuned, a PID control loop can provide control accurate enough to match the process (actual) temperature to the setpoint within a degree or two.
For the lay person, another way of describing a PID loop is to consider how a driver regulates the speed of his automobile. Assume you are driving and want to catch up with and follow the car ahead of you — to do so, you need to match that car’s speed and maintain a safe distance. What you don’t do is floor the automobile until you get to the desired following distance and then hit the brakes. What you do is first accelerate to a speed faster than the target car to close the gap, then you instinctively take your foot off the accelerator when you get close, slowing gradually until your speed and position are as you desire. In this example, you have considered your speed, how close you are to the car you are attempting to follow, and the rate at which you are closing the gap. A PID loop is nothing more than a mathematical model of these actions.
The PID control loop provides an output — the format can vary, but it is in essence a percent output. It is a percent of the maximum firing rate the system needs to provide to achieve and maintain the desired furnace temperature. This percent output can be translated directly into a proportional output for proportional control — where the firing rate is proportional to the loop’s output.
On/off or high/low controls require a different approach where a time proportioning output is provided in which the burner fires on and off on a fixed time cycle. In this mode of control, the PID loop’s output is multiplied by the cycle time to determine the on or high fire period and the on or high fire time is subtracted from the cycle time to determine the off or low fire period. Cycle times can run from as little as 30 seconds to as much as a few minutes. Obviously, the shorter the cycle time, the more responsive the control, but also the more wear on the control components. The cycle time should be as long as possible but still meet the needs of the process control.
Don’t confuse these pulses with other control methods that are marketed as pulse firing. When people speak of pulse firing, they often mean a pattern with alternate burners firing to provide greater temperature uniformity and heat transfer. This is a very interesting subject and the topic for another day.
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In 2007, an indirectly heated roller hearth furnace with energy-efficient REKUMAT® burners was put into operation at a Schaeffler plant in Germany. These burners were serviced last fall in Renningen and adapted in order to be operated with both natural gas and H2 as fuel with high efficiency and lowest emissions. The successful commissioning with natural gas has already been carried out, and once the hydrogen infrastructure has been established, commissioning with H2 as fuel gas will proceed.
With this and other conversions as well as newly built projects, Schaeffler is demonstrating its comprehensive commitment to sustainability while investing in the long-term future of the respective plants. Wienstroth Wärmeprozesstechnik GmbH in building the plant and then servicing it recently helps with the adaptation to H2 as fuel. This conversion is possible for many existing plants with reasonable effort, without having to install new burners. Until the necessary hydrogen infrastructure is available, continued operation on natural gas or mixtures of natural gas and hydrogen is possible.
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Heat Treat Today’s Technical Tuesday feature means that on just about any given Tuesday, there will be an article that aims to educate our heat treating readers—be it in a process, equipment, metals, analysis, critical parts, or more. Enjoy this sampling of Technical Tuesday articles from the past several months.
Case Study: Heat Treat Equipment Meets the Future Industry Today
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Construction and schematic furnace cross-section CMe-T6810-25 Source: SECO/WARWICK
How has one heat treat furnace supplier contended with modern challenges of manufacturing? In this case study about a shift away from traditional forms of heat treat, explorehow vacuum furnace technology has more technological horizons to bound.
Several key features discussed will be the various challenges that characterize modern industry; the differences between historical heat treat furnaces and vacuum furnaces; furnace features that can meet these obstacles; and a close look at what one equipment option from SECO/WARWICK helps. Additionally, explore the case study of a process that resulted in the following assessment: "all technological requirements have been met, obtaining the following indicators of efficiency and consumption of energy factors calculated for the entire load and per unit net weight of the load (700 kg)."
Eric Yeager of Cleveland Electric explaining the 101 of all things thermocouple Source: Heat Treat Today
How do thermocouples work? How would you tell if you had a bad one? Those ever present temperature monitors are fairly straightforward to use, but when it comes to how it works — and why — things get complicated.
This transcript Q&A article was published in the print edition last year (2022), but there was too much information to fill the pages. Online, read the full-length interview, including the final conversation about how dissimilar metals create EMF. Included in the discussion is proper care of the T/C and knowledge of when it’s time to replace.
Trends in the heat treat industry Source: Unsplash.com/getty images
What’s “hot” for heat treaters in recent months? The trends are pointing towards streamlining upgrading information systems, more efforts to reduce carbon footprint, and ensuring processes in salt quenching and electricity use are as efficient as they can be.
Each of the 6 trends included in the article demonstrates that heat treaters are making thoughtful and responsible decisions and purchases. Considerations include care for the environment and methods to help employees share and receive information needed for each job.
Read more about each of the trends to see what’s happening with equipment purchases and technology decisions and how companies are pushing to make that carbon footprint smaller.
A Quick Guide to Alloys and Their Medical Applications
Sneak peak of this medical alloys resource Source: Heat Treat Today
If you're pining for a medical heat treat quick resource in our "off-season," we have a resource for you. Whether you are a seasoned heat treater of medical application parts or not, you know that the alloy composition of a part will greatly determine the type of heat treat application that is suitable. Before you expand your heat treat capabilities of medical devices, check out this graphic to quickly pin-point what alloys are in high-demand within the medical industry and what end-product they relate to.
The alloys addressed in this graphic are: titanium, cobalt chromium, niobium, nitinol, copper, and tantalum.
Resource -- Forging, Quenching, and Integrated Heat Treat: DFIQ Final Report
Examples of DFIQ equipment Source: Joe Powell
How much time and energy does it take to bring parts through forging and heat treatment? Have you ever tried to integrating these heat intensive processes? If part design, forging method, and heat treat quenching solutions are considered together, some amazing results can occur. Check out the report findings when the Direct from Forge Intensive Quenching (DFIQTM) was studied.
Forgings were tested, in three different locations, to see if immediate quenching after forging made a difference in a variety of steel samples. The report shares, “The following material mechanical properties were evaluated: tensile strength, yield strength, elongation, reduction in area and impact strength. Data obtained on the mechanical properties of DFIQ forgings were compared to that of forgings after applying a conventional post-forging heat-treating process.”
Metallography and nitriding, while two separate things, actually have a relationship. Do you know what it is? Would you be surprised to know that one enhances the other? Read this best of the web article to clearly see how metallography results help the nitriding of ferrous alloys be the best that it can be.
Find out how metallography is an essential tool in the nitriding process. Take a look at some basic definitions and peruse some microscope images that help explain what nitriding does to different materials. Dig even deeper with discussion of problems such as not enough stress relief and the presence of sulfides. Metallography helps explain, in this article, what nitriding can do for many different applications.
An excerpt:
Producing the best nitrided layers for the given application requires a good cooperation between designers of the product and the manufacturing companies making it . . . . Metallography of the parts, or samples which run together with them, is extremely important for verifying results of this thermochemical treatment and assessing the properties of the layer formed during, the data are also used for maintaining a good predictability of the process.
We have the honor to speak with another Heat Treat Legend in our industry, John L. Becker, president and founder of Heat Treat Equipment. Doug Glenn, publisher of Heat TreatToday and host of this podcast, has been chatting with the legends walking among us who’ve been involved with the North American heat treat to get a sense of where they’ve been, what they’re doing, and what advice they would share with the current generation. “Tenacious” is the word that comes to mind from this conversation.
Below, you can watch the video, listen to the podcast by clicking on the audio play button, or read an edited transcript.
The following transcript has been edited for your reading enjoyment.
A Summer at Ford Motor Company (01:20)
Doug Glenn: John, you were the founder and owner of the J.L. Becker Company which was recently purchased by Gasbarre Furnace Group. You’re no longer associated with that company, since you sold it. You are associated with Heat Treat Equipment, Inc., which you also started.
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How did you get started in the heat treat industry?
John Becker: It goes back to the summer of 1964 when I had been going to a junior college, and I started dating my wife. Her father was in the steel division at Ford Motor Company, and I needed a summer job in 1964. Through his contacts, I was able to get a job there. My position was very "prestigious." I had my own tool; it was called a broom! Through sweeping up, I was a first-class janitor. Then, I was able to move up to a helper’s position.
In working there for the summer, I saw a lot about the making of steel and the production processes. I used to hang around the lab, because in the summer, the lab was air conditioned; and I could pretend that I was interested in that area. By the end of the summer, they asked if I would consider going on co-op for metallurgy. I thought, “Well, that sounds easy. I can do that,” not realizing what I was in for.
"I received a BES in 1968" Source: Western Michigan University
I started in metallurgy, and worked for Ford and went to Western Michigan University where I received a BES (Bachelor of Engineering Science) in 1968. During that time of co-op, I worked and took classes. I used to take classes at Wayne State, Lawrence Tech, and other places where I could get some hours or get a class.
After I graduated, they put me in an area called the AADGO (Automotive Assembly Division General Office) where I was a fastener engineer. We were dealing with nuts, bolts, screws, and washers. I started visiting heat treat shops. At the same time, they put me on the MBA management program through the University of Michigan.
There were a lot of people in Rockford, IL, that made fasteners. One of the areas we were concerned with was heat treating. That thing called the Delta or appendix C, the Q101 (Quality 101 points) for Ford. I would go around inspecting plants, and I got to know several people in heat treating. I was a bit fascinated by it.
In 1970, Ford laid me off. I was still finishing up school, and I had a child. I actually started teaching school part time and did that for a while. I was a “the permanent substitute,” so I would work a lot of different days. That was quite enjoyable!
I started working for a company that sold high temperature materials: conveyer belts, etc. and was pretty successful. I looked at what I was getting paid. At this company, some reps were getting 10%. I was getting a salary and expenses, and I understood that it was a pretty good deal. But I still looked at reps and figured I made 10% of that value.
Starting a Business in a Basement (06:18)
I decided to really go on my own, and I started the J.L. Becker Company out of my house as a rep. I had four principals, and a few others in the industry. I didn’t represent these, but I could sell their products. Two examples were the wire mesh conveyer belt of Canada and I Squared R, which provides silicon carbide heating elements. We had a line of hearth plates, thermocouples. I became the Lockheed engineering rep. Because of that, I called on a lot of OEMs like Surface Combustion and Atmosphere Furnace and others.
"My dad gave me an old phone." Source: Unsplash.com/Nguyen Dang Hoang Nhu
We built it up. Everybody in Michigan had a basement. My dad had given me a used desk and, in those days, you had a phone that was wired to the wall. My dad had given me an old phone, so I started a company. In the basement of the house, I had a little cubby, about 4 ft by 7 ft, and that was my world headquarters.
After 6 months, I started to interview for a new job with salary and benefits, and all the things I didn’t have, because it wasn’t as great as I thought.
I had been calling on Monroe Auto Equipment in Monroe, Michigan. Monroe Auto Equipment has four plants that do powdered metallurgy; they make components for shock absorbers. I had become friends with a guy there, Fleming Pruitt. I still remember his name to this day.
He called me and asked for a particular product. I got a price for it, called him back, and he said, “I made a mistake. I didn’t want 20 pieces, I wanted 200.” I was going to make 10 bucks a piece or some number like that. All of a sudden, I was, like, “Whoa!” That started it.
Then I got another order, another order, and another order. Over time, I started thinking: “Why don’t I have some of my own products where I can control the price?” I could buy it for X and add my overhead to it.
Growing the Business (09:13)
In 1974, I moved to an office in Livonia, Michigan. It was in a multitenant-type building, and the fellow had rented two spots, and there was one empty office. I started there. I ended up hiring a gal by the name of Carol Campbell, right about then, for $90 a week and no benefits. She did an outstanding job for me. Around 1976, I hired Dave Peterson. Dave still, as you know, works with me today. I couldn’t chase him away. I tried and failed.
"I added another piece of the puzzle." Source: Unsplash.com/Nathalie Segato
From there, I added another piece of the puzzle. Each year we expanded. I got busy enough where I visited someone who I was selling different components to, and they had a piece of equipment they wanted to get rid of. I had visited someone else the day before who was looking for the same thing. I didn’t have to be that bright to understand that this guy wanted a dollar, and this guy was willing to pay two dollars. That worked out pretty well, and I did that a few times. But then the next time I did it, the person said, “You need to take it out.” So, I was able to; there was a group of guys and my office, at that time, was right behind Holcroft in Livonia. I got to know a lot of guys that worked there, and they would come and work for me on weekends. We would dismantle, move things, and ship them out.
Eventually, I got a little shop. I hired a fellow, whose name is Charlie Hatala, who now has Great Lakes Industrial Furnace. Charlie ran the shop, and then we started refurbishing equipment.
Then, in 1978 or 1979, BorgWarner Corporation in Michigan asked me if I could build a tempering furnace. I was doing maintenance for them installing components. I did a lot of brazing and sintering furnaces and some batch furnaces. They needed to do temper. I said yes, having never done it before.
Eventually, we figured it out.
I hired an engineer who worked for us part time for a while, and the shop became a busier situation. We started to build some equipment.
I hired an engineer, a fellow by the name of Don LaFore, who has now passed away. Don came in and helped shepherd us along to do design work. We started to build some belt-type furnaces for sintering and brazing. There were other people in the industry who had small operations to do refractory work or do electrical. We leaned on those individuals and started to build.
By 1980, I had two guys in engineering, Dave in sales, Carol in the office, and my wife, Eileen, was our CFO, as she still is today. It just went from there!
By 1983, we moved to another larger building.
In 1989 we moved again, and then in 2000, we moved to an even larger facility.
So, we had gone from about $700k–$800k to about $25 million in my last couple of years. In fact, we have equipment we built in the Ukraine for which my son, Matt, did the startup. We just looked at it in satellite, and it’s still standing and hasn’t blown up yet. That particular system, we duplicated twice for Russia.
Becker Goes International (14:16)
We built equipment in Israel, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, and China. Korea was the first place, out of the country, where I sold a piece of equipment. That was right at the beginning, probably in the later part of the 1970’s, maybe very early 1980’s.
"We built equipment in Israel, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, and China." Source: Unsplash.com/Lucas George Wendt
At Ford Motor Company, there was a research scientist; he was a Korean doctor. He had gone back to Korea to head a thing called KIMM (Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials) and he called me and ordered a furnace. We built the furnace, a research-type sintering furnace and endo generator, and I actually went to Korea and did the startup. That was one of the first international ones. We’ve shipped equipment to Canada, to Mexico, and to quite a few different places.
At 68 years old, in 2011, I sold the company to Gasbarre.
Becker’s Network in the Heat Treating Industry (16:02)
Doug Glenn: Give us a recap of some of the people with whom you’ve interacted.
John Becker: There was a startup company in around 1970/71 called Custom Electric Furnace, where Tim Mousseau worked as an engineer. Charlie Hatala was basically the president and shop manager. They had all come from a company called Alexander Engineering which goes way, way back.
I started repping them, and I sold a few furnaces for them.
Another guy that was repping around there was Jeff Smith; he worked for the which represented a company out of New York that made heat exchangers. Jeff came up with the idea of making his own heat exchangers, and that’s when they started SBS Corp.
During that same time period, I became friends with John Young. John’s father had Perfection Heat Treating Company, and his father, unexpectedly, died just before Christmas around 1976, I believe. John and I became friends. His wife’s name was Eileen, and my wife’s name was Eileen. We both had degrees in metallurgy; our backgrounds were very parallel to one another.
John and I ended up buying the heat treating company called Steel Improvement Company, and John ran that company successfully for about 10 years. Also, John and I got in on a few other companies too.
1984 and 1985 hurt the heat treat industry in Detroit, so we ended up liquidating both those companies.
Just like Jeff Smith, people from, refractory people, we interfaced with so many people here. In the metropolitan Detroit area, you have everything you can think of: Electrical supplies, wire, refractory, engineering help, machining, fabricating, steel suppliers. Everything is right at our fingertips. You have a real cornucopia of support-type people from lawyers to accountants to medical to whatever. It was a good place to nurture a company.
Like I said, we built the company up, and I was really motivated to sell.
In 2009, my oldest boy died. That hurt me personally, obviously. Then, in 2010, my younger son, Matt, who’s kind of a Mensa kid, announced he was going to leave to open a brewery. He has been extremely successful.
Then, Gasbarre approached me. My thoughts of passing the business on to my sons were trash, so I sold the company. After I sold it I consulted with them for a couple years; it was all part of the contract. I realized I really didn’t want to get out of it; I had pulled the trigger a little too quickly.
I’m 79, and I still work almost every day. I love the business, and I’ve come to know so many people in the business that I interface with. I’ve had some very, very strong supporters over the years for the equipment that we’ve built.
One guy that was probably the nicest guy — you couldn’t have asked for a better friend — was Jim Hendershot who had Carolina Commercial Heat Treat. Jim sold it to Gibraltar and on and on. Now, most of their plants are part of Bodycote.
John’s Supporters (22:32)
Doug Glenn: Are there two or three people who had a significant impact, people that encouraged you to carry on?
John Becker: You know, I really can’t point to anybody individually. Obviously, my wife was a supporter. She was burdened with the accounting side of the business.
"It was more people believing in me..." Source: Unsplash.com/Brett Jordan
I had a lot of different people. There was a buyer at Ford who was very supportive. Another guy at AC Spark Plug up in Flint; I did a lot of work for them and built several pieces of equipment. So, it was more people believing in me and believing that I could do the job and giving me the opportunity to do it.
My best friend just passed away a week ago (he was a Ford dealer). He would listen to me all the time and give me advice. He had built up a company where he was the number one Ford dealer for 1921 and 1922 in volume, worldwide, in the small little town of Livonia. It was very prestigious. He was a very well-liked individual. He gave me a lot of advice about not trying to micromanage, about giving up control and giving control to other people, hiring people and trusting them to let them do their job, and how to treat individuals. I think I learned a lot from that.
John’s Significant Accomplishments (25:20)
Doug Glenn: What are one or two your significant accomplishments?
John Becker: Dave Peterson worked with a company (and I won’t mention their name), and I joined him. This company had bought a used piece of equipment and did some converting on it to do a process. They had built one, and then we built their next one and “upgraded” it to the next phase.
We worked on the design and built and built and built it to where they had about 50 of these units. I think, between myself and Gasbarre, there may be 55 of them built. If you look at it, it’s roughly a million dollars apiece; they were very successful. They were using my son, Matt, who developed the software and automated all the controls to mass flow sensors, etc. This was early on before a lot of things that we have today. If you look back, this was all new technology at the time.
That was a “feather in our cap,” and that was a whole team. The engineering department did the engineering, the shop and the people in fabricating all had ideas and those were incorporated into it, and Matt redeveloped the software and the controls and developed all the programming. Before they had a lot of mechanical and timing issues where a bell would ring and an operator would have to do something, this was all automated. It took the operator out of what was a 30, 40, 50-hour process.
It’s very successful. That shows how the whole group pulled together and did it.
"I'm tenacious like a bulldog..." Source: Unsplash.com/MattODell
My success has been talking. Sales. I’ve been able to connect with people. I’m tenacious like a bulldog on an ankle; it’s hard to get me off. My middle initial is “L” and I tell everybody it’s for “Lucky.” I’ve been very fortunate to have a very loyal group of individuals. Like, we’re here now at Heat Treat Equipment. Bill Richardson started me in 1980 and was chief engineer and is with me now. Dave Peterson was my sales manager since 1976/77 and is with me now. The people in our shop, I did not solicit them. They came to me. When I had J.L. Becker, they were the ones that made the clock work.
I would go out, do the sales, contribute to them, and try to close the deal. I had more people — we had four or five gals, plus the CPA, plus my wife in the office, for insurance, employee benefits, payroll, paying the bills, etc. That worked very well, but that wasn’t my department. I looked at it macro work, but the micro work was done by all of them. They were very organized. The same was true for the shop and in engineering.
I really have to say they’re the ones that made the business keep moving. I would come in and say, “I’ve sold another standard piece of equipment except everything is different.”
Lessons Learned (30:43)
Doug Glenn: Over your work career, were there any disciplines that you developed? Were there any disciplines you developed you felt were beneficial for you and for your company?
John Becker: I can’t think of anything specifically. They always say, “Never quit. Never take ‘no’ for an answer.” So, I never quit. I used to tease some of the other guys because they would call on a customer for years, literally 4–10 years, and nothing would happen. Then, there was that lucky change in personnel. All of sudden, everything started to happen. We became “their guys.”
I was tenacious, and I listened. I do a lot of talking, but people don’t realize I do listen. Understanding, in sales, what does your customer want, what’s the expectation? I’m not going to pick on any other company, but some, more or less, “fell from the catalog.”
I always thought we were willing to change to try to modify or make our equipment fit our customer’s needs, not our customer needs fitting our equipment. We always went in and would change things. As I said, “Another standard piece except everything is different!”
I know when I sold the company, Gasbarre enjoyed quite a bit of repeat business from our customer base. I think our customer base was loyal; the loyalty came back from being loyal to them. We, like everyone else, had problems. My point was: We need to fix the problem, not fix blame. We didn’t worry about the cost. When it was done and resolved, then we could go back and look at it to find out if the problem arose from something we did, was it improper usage, etc.?
We never walked away from a problem and trust me, I had them over the years.
Doug Glenn: Did you ever lose any big money on them?
John Becker: Yes. More than once, and we lived to tell about it! The problem was sometimes I was quick on the draw. A guy that draws fast can shoot his foot off. The gun goes off a little too quick. Every time I would try to jam a square peg into a round hole — like I said, I was tenacious. I would fight and fight and fight for an order and get it and get creamed.
Work-Life Balance (34:55)
Doug Glenn: How did you handle work-life balance?
John Becker: It was never a struggle. I worked 6 days a week; when the kids were growing up, I coached baseball. I had a soccer team I coached in Northville for both my boys. We loved Florida because my grandparents were down there. My mother’s parents were down there, and my parents moved there. I had a brother and sister that lived there, etc.
We started going down to Florida very early in our lives in the 1970’s. We took vacations with the boys. There are plays and things they did at school; we did all that. We had a pretty good life.
Over the years, I’ve developed a lack of memory. When I walk out the door of work, my memory just falls off somewhere. I’m driving home and when I get home, I can’ remember things. Even though Eileen was involved in the business, I didn’t go home and talk about the business. I left it at work.
[blockquote author="" style="1"]One thing I’ve learned is that the work you didn’t do today will be there tomorrow. The work will be there.[/blockquote]One thing I’ve learned is that the work you didn’t do today will be there tomorrow. The work will be there. Early on, I did a few things. I missed a funeral for a friend that I still look back at, 30 years later, and say, “I could’ve cancelled or rescheduled those appointments, and I could’ve gone there.” I still think I should have gone to the funeral, and I didn’t and I’m sorry, today. The appointments that I went to never turned out to be anything.
I’ve always carried that around, that I should have been there for that person even though they had passed. You make decisions, and I think you’ve got to remember that a lot of these things will be there tomorrow that you don’t get to today.
Advice to Young Leaders in the Industry (37:48)
Doug Glenn: Were there one or two lessons you learned along the way, words of wisdom you would give?
John Becker: Send your resumes out somewhere else? Find a different career! I don’t mean that; the industry has been good to me.
I think that one of the things for younger people, especially in sales, is this: I would go work on a sale and I would think, “Boy, I’ve got this thing,” and find out I lost to a competitor, not realizing the purchasing guy’s brother-in-law was my competitor. So, understanding the politics of situations, the relationships. I’ve had people that I’ve been very, very close to and they would go out for bids, but I knew I was getting the work. Get to understand the relationship, who they’ve worked with in the past.
The other thing I think is important is technical society. I belong to ASM (ASM International, formerly known as the American Society for Metals). I used to belong to MPIF (Metal Powder Industries Foundation), the APMI (American Powder Metallurgy Institute).
I was one of the original associate members of MTI (Metal Treating Institute), but actually I was an MTI member back in the 70’s because we (John Young and I) owned the heat treat shop. John was the member, and I was the alternate. They were very, very down on a salesperson, like me, coming to those types of meetings. I did go to a couple. In fact, the very first or second meeting that Lance ever had, I met a guy who was from out in Oklahoma, by the name of John Hubbard. That was back in, probably, 1980, roughly, ’81 maybe; it was in that time.
Doug Glenn: So, for those who are listening that might not know, Lance Miller was the executive director of the Metal Treating Institute (not anymore, Tom Morrison is currently in that position). John Hubbard ended up being the CEO of Bodycote for years and years.
John Becker: I think in establishing relationships, try to be as honest as you can with your customers. There is a certain point that, I think, to maybe be a little guarded in your answers. Be as honest as you can without giving away your company secrets or whatever. Say you’ve had something in the background in your company that’s gone on and it’s affecting something. You don’t need to broadcast that, but you should maybe tell your customers you’ve had some issues that are going to delay or change things. That’s the best thing.
Just be yourself; don’t try to be somebody else. And you know what, if you don’t come home laughing and having a good time and enjoying yourself, you’re in the wrong business.
About the expert:
John Becker, president at Heat Treat Equipment: Founder and president of Heat Treat Equipment (est. 2011), has a long and distinguished career in the heat treat industry as the founder and long-time president of J. L. Becker Company, a manufacturer of new furnaces and heat treat equipment.
A Terre Haute, IN, company has completed the commissioning of a vacuum furnace system for a Mid-Atlantic manufacturer. The furnace was upgraded with an oversized vacuum pumping system, updated piping, all metallic hot zone, and control system.
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New Tech for Shinkansai Steel Co., Ltd.'s -ton Electric Arc Furnace
New tech for Shinkansai Steel Co., Ltd. plant Source: Furnaces International
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If you are considering making the leap to laser heat treat, buckle up. Nic Willis, metallurgist/heat treat supervisor of Emerson Professional Tools — RIDGID® TOOLS, and recipient of 
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