Publisher’s Page

Heat Treat Today publishes eight print magazines a year, and included in each is a letter from the publisher, Doug Glenn. This letter first appeared in the November 2024 People of Vacuum print edition.

Feel free to contact Doug at doug@heattreattoday.com if you have a question or comment. 

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Don’t try and weave a common thread between the four items below; there really isn’t one.

Act of Kindness in the Vacuum Industry

One of North America’s leading vacuum heat treat-related companies lost one of its key leaders to a battle with cancer recently. My wife and I were fortunate to attend a very Christ-centered funeral service which, in its own way, was encouraging even as it recognized the pain and sting of death. One of the most touching and thoughtful things happened when my wife and I came to the front of the viewing line to extend our condolences to family members. The father of the deceased pulled us aside and showed us a beautiful bouquet of flowers sent by a competitor. In my eyes, this was a classy and thoughtful gesture, and it was deeply appreciated by the family. It just goes to show that North American heat treating is a rare industry full of kind and thoughtful people. Kudos to the competitor for their thoughtfulness.

Signs that Our Industry Is “Younging Up”

Over the past several weeks, I have been more and more impressed with how the North American heat treat industry is attracting and maintaining excellent young talent. If you read any of the content we put out in September, you’ll know that we honored another 40 young individuals who are rising leaders in the North American heat treat market. In fact, we’ve honored 240 such individuals since 2018. Many of these recipients continue to contribute to the industry in significant ways.

I also had the pleasure of attending the Industrial Heating Equipment Association’s (IHEA) annual Combustion Seminar and Safety Seminar. The number of young people taking these two courses this year was very impressive. Well over half of the attendees were easily under the age of 40 with a large number appearing to be in their 20s or 30s.

Thanks for Rating Us Highly

Results from a recent industry study proved to be very positive for Heat Treat Today, The study focused on heat treat media brands in the North American market and Heat Treat Today ranked #1 in all categories. Our team was humbled and thankful to all of our readers for the faith you put in us to bring you the latest and most helpful technical and news content. We believe people are happier and make better decisions when they are well informed. If you’re a supplier to the industry and are looking to reach end-users of heat treat equipment, especially manufacturers who have their own in-house heat treat operations, please know that we’d be honored to help. To all of our readers, viewers, and listeners, thanks for ranking us so highly. We appreciate your faith in us.

Print Is the Most Preferred Media

Somewhat counterintuitively, the above media study revealed that respondents vastly preferred the print version of a magazine over a) the digital edition of the magazine, b) websites, c) e-newsletters, d) podcasts, and e) social media — in that order. The survey was sent out by email, so it was not skewed by sending it only to those who currently receive print copies. The survey was sent to a mixture of print magazine recipients, website visitors, e-newsletter recipients, and podcast listeners and STILL a preference for a copy of the print magazine far outpaced all the other options — across ALL recipients regardless of age. Interesting results which might help inform your future marketing plans if you’re a supplier to this industry.

Contact Doug Glenn at doug@heattreattoday.com.

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Find Heat Treating Products And Services When You Search On Heat Treat Buyers Guide.Com

Heat Treat Today publishes four print magazines a year, and included in each is a letter from the publisher, Doug Glenn. This letter first appeared in Heat Treat Today‘s Medical and Energy Heat Treating magazine, December 2020.

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Home heating oil is going for $1.49 per gallon. 525.4 gallons was just pumped into the two, 275-gallon fuel oil tanks in the basement of my 1900’s-era farmhouse. Eleven months ago, when I last filled those tanks, fuel oil was selling for $2.35 per gallon. $1.49 is the lowest price I’ve paid in the 10 years I’ve lived in this drafty old house, and it represents a 36% drop in price.

Let’s put the blame on fracking for the price drop. We can’t really blame COVID – although we can and should blame COVID for nearly everything else that went wrong in 2020, but not the drop in fuel oil prices specifically, and energy prices in general.

My acquaintance and friend, Dr. Mark W. Hendrickson, retired  adjunct faculty member, economist, and fellow for economics and social policy with the Institute for Faith and Freedom (www.faithandfreedom.com) at Grove City College (www.gcc.edu), my alma mater, in western Pennsylvania, recently published a short and thought-provoking article about fracking. You can read Dr. Hendrickson’s entire blog post by clicking here (if you’re reading this in digital format – which apparently only roughly 30% of you are), or if you’re reading this in the “old-fashioned” print edition (roughly 70% of you!), I’ll summarize a few of the more salient points below, or you can jump on your computer and Bing or Google “mark hendrickson faith freedom why fracking is a big issue.” It will pop up as one of the first search results. More on this article in just one moment. But first …

Since this issue covers heat treatments in the energy and medical industries, please notice the article in this issue that deals with heat treating a fracking pump valve seat. The article is an edited version of one of four Heat Treat Radio interviews conducted with Integrated Heat Treating Solutions CEO, Joe Powell. If you’re involved in the oil and gas industry or any other energy related industry, this fracking article will be of interest to you. Joe explains how his company more than doubles the life of a mission-critical valve seat in a down-hole fracking pump by introducing some very, very unique heat treating and quenching processes. (Spoiler: the secret is in the quenching!) Read and enjoy – or if you’d prefer to listen, click here.

Now, back to Dr. Mark Hendrickson’s blog post on fracking, Why Fracking is a Big Issue. Dr. Hendrickson points out “the strange tendency of many people who have benefited from economic advances to denounce and vilify the source of their prosperity, a sort of ‘bite-the-hand-that-feeds-you’ phenomenon.” The “denouncing and vilifying” of fracking is one good example of this strange psychosis.

Hendrickson continues, “The enormous boost that cheap natural gas gives to the American economy is reason enough to continue with fracking, but there are also important geopolitical, health, and environmental benefits to natural gas.” Geopolitically, fracking has made the US energy independent. In terms of human health and safety, natural gas is “far safer for workers to extract than coal, and burning it causes much less pollution than coal.”

Much more could be said; much more is said in Hendrickson’s short article. I recommend his article to you.

I like paying $1.49 per gallon for my fuel oil, but I’m not in favor of that price if there is an obvious harm being done to a specific person. Dealing with legitimate environmental, health, and safety issues verifiably caused by fracking is reasonable and good; completely eliminating fracking seems extreme. Long live $1.49 (or less) fuel oil prices for all!

Heat Treat Today publishes four print magazines a year, and included in each is a letter from the publisher, Doug Glenn. This letter first appeared in Heat Treat Today‘s Automotive Heat Treating magazine, June 2020.

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For the record, the 2020 North American heat treat industry has been severely impacted by COVID-19. Everyone I’ve talked to agrees that the reality of 2020 will pale in comparison to the hopes and dreams for 2020 back in January and February of this year. March and April usually bring spring-like optimism, but this year those two months were marked by a grinding of the US economy to a nearly complete standstill, the heat treat industry included. As one of our Latvian foreign exchange visitors said in his broken English, “NOT GOOD.” Thus, it has been; and thus, it is even as of this writing.

Every situation, however, is 20% situation and 80% what you make of it, so let me suggest four positive things that will come out of this historic economic tragedy.

#1 “Sheltering at home” for 6-8 weeks might help us all slow down. For the vast majority, we’ve all been slowly heated in the waters of busyness to the point where we think it is normal. During my recent conversation with the executive director of an industry association, this person said, “I’m in favor of anything that will help us all slow down.” This person was fully convinced that our “normal” pace is not healthy. Perhaps this person was right. One other individual I spoke to was “forced” to ignore work for two weeks. His company furloughed individuals and sternly warned them NOT to check emails while furloughed because the company could be sued if furloughed workers were actually working. The national market manager that told me this story did so from his personal cell phone while preparing to paint a room in his house. No work for him. Like many of us, he had to slow down.

#2 Interacting face-to-face with other human beings is important. I know that many of you introverts are loving the forced isolation, but even you must admit that after a week or more seeing no one, it would be nice to be able to at least go somewhere where you can actually see and talk to other human beings besides those with whom you are confined to quarters. My favorite example of this are all of the technologically savvy young people who live on their phones. As long as they have their phones, they’re content. Come to find out, many of these now homebound young ones are now MISSING SCHOOL, not so much for the academics, but more for the interaction with their peers – even if it is sitting next to each other with their heads in their phones! People matter. COVID is helping us remember.

#3 COVID, or more accurately, the RESPONSE to COVID, is helping us all remember just how quickly we can lose our freedoms. For many of us, we lost the freedom to go to work, we lost the freedom to freely assemble, we lost the freedom to travel where and when we like, we lost the freedom to walk around without a mask, we lost the freedom to walk up a grocery store aisle in either direction, and we’ve even lost the freedom to worship where and when we like. Some even argue that we’ve lost our freedom of speech! Try asserting the opinion that the actual COVID virus is not significantly more dangerous than a normal flu. Try it once; you’ll not do it again! Of course, most of these freedoms will be lost only temporarily and for a good cause – our safety. But please remember what King Mongkut (Yul Brynner in The King and I) said about finding safety from others, “Might they not protect me out of all I own?” Or take it from Ben Franklin – “Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” 

#4 And finally, COVID is helping us all see just how quickly life can change … and this is a good thing … because it is true. We think we are safe, we think we are secure, we think that life will always be this way, we think we are in control. We are wrong. There’s only One in control – assuming you believe in God – and we are not Him. This might be a scary thought for some – to not be in control. But, it is better to live in an unpleasant reality than a dangerous fantasy. COVID is helping us deal with reality.

So, there’s a lot of good coming from this pandemic. Here’s to a more modestly paced life, here’s to time with friends and family, here’s to liberty, here’s to remembering Who’s in charge … and here’s to your health and safety and a return to a more “normal” North American heat treat market.

Heat Treat Today publishes four print magazines a year, and included in each is a letter from the publisher, Doug Glenn. This letter first appeared in Heat Treat Today‘s Aerospace Heat Treating magazine, March 2020. 

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The first time I heard the name “Rodriguez” was at the 2015 ASM International Heat Treat Show during the “The Heat Is On” networking reception held at The Waterview Loft at Port Detroit – the same location it was held this last year (2019). I was standing beside a to-remain-nameless president of a furnace manufacturing company who had traveled extensively in his pre-heat treat days. While we were chatting at one of the outdoor cocktail tables on a lovely Detroit night, a middle-aged couple (and by that I mean a couple who were roughly my age, 54 at the time) came up and stood with us. Striking up a conversation with them, as I’m known to do with complete strangers, it became clear to us, both by their accent and by the content of the conversation itself, that they were from South Africa. They were here in the States to attend the Heat Treat Show.

When the “to-remain-nameless” furnace manufacturing president found out that this middle-aged couple was from South Africa, his eyes lit up. With enthusiasm somewhat uncharacteristic of his personality, he asked them – with great anticipation – “Do you know Rodriguez?” They looked at him as if he had two heads and after a short glance at each other replied, “Of course!” The to-remain-nameless president then looked at me, a man of roughly the same age as these two middle-aged individuals, and said, “Do YOU know Rodriguez?” Feeling a bit in the dark, I answered honestly, “No; who is Rodriquez?”

Suffice it to say, I did a lot of listening from that point forward in the conversation. It was fascinating and, to be frank, somewhat unbelievable.

As with any good story, it is best not to say too much, especially about how the story ends, but the story of Rodriguez is a fascinating story that you will NOT believe. And it is heat treat related – kind of.

I’ll tell you a bit more about Rodriguez here, but you must PROMISE to search for and watch the documentary about Rodriguez, Searching for Sugar Man. You can watch it on Netflix, and you may be able to find it other places as well. Trust me, it will be a worthwhile investment of time and, if you’re like most people who I’ve steered in that direction, your response will be something like, “No way! Not possible.”

In fact, Rodriguez was a heat treater. If you listen carefully at roughly the 1-hour mark in the documentary, you’ll find out that Rodriguez worked in the heat treat department for Chrysler, its Lynch Road Assembly plant in, interestingly enough, Detroit! According to Wikipedia, the “Lynch Road Assembly [Plant] was a Chrysler assembly plant located… near Coleman A. Young International Airport. It is now the location of The Crown Group, a powdered coatings manufacturer which supports the automotive manufacturing industry.”

That is as “heat treat” as the documentary gets, so don’t expect any more.

You need to watch this documentary, you and your entire family. My four kids were all in their teen years when we first watched Searching for Sugar Man. They were mesmerized once we got into it. Suffice it to say that Rodriguez was a musician besides being a heat treater, and what happened to him is, well… unbelievable.

If, nay, WHEN you watch it, please drop me an email (doug@heattreattoday.com) and tell me what you thought. Also, if you know of any other non-heat treat, heat treat stories, or simply movies where heat treat is mentioned, please let me know. I’m trying to compile a list of movies where at least heat treat gets a mention.

Heat Treat Today publishes four print magazines a year, and included in each is a letter from the publisher, Doug Glenn. This letter first appeared in Heat Treat Today‘s Medical & Energy Heat Treating magazine, December 2019

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The fingers of heat treat reach into nearly every area of our life. Some of the effects of heat treating are obvious, like the landing gear on an airplane that is able to take repeated high-impact landings without snapping in two. There are other effects of heat treating that are not as obvious but are no less important. Take for example the amazing things that go on inside that same airplane’s jet engines at super-high temperatures and super high stress and strain levels. The jet engine is a modern marvel usually taken for granted by millions of travelers each day.

Some of the effects of heat treating are mundane. One of my favorite examples of a very practical and understandable heat treatment is the annealing process for aluminum foil. “Why is it,” I ask, “that you are able to bend this thin sheet of metal and yet it doesn’t shatter, break, or even crack?” Answer: heat treat–specifically, foil annealing.

In this issue, we take a look as some rather fascinating heat treatments in the medical and energy industries. It’s not that these two industries have anything to do with each other; they really don’t. In fact, much of what is done in the medical industry is done in vacuum furnaces in cleanroom settings. Energy heat treatments, on the other hand, can be done in a vacuum, especially when stainless steels or other more exotic materials are used (think nuclear reactors), or they can be done in the down and dirty atmosphere furnaces and oil quench tanks. But they are both heat treat-intense industries and both worthy of some attention–thus we’ve combined them into one issue.

Pulling Energy from the Earth’s Core

One of the more fascinating “heat treat” applications is the emerging possibility of being able to extract what appears to be an infinite supply of energy from the earth’s core using a material that will transfer the energy from the core to the surface with essentially zero losses. The material capable of doing this is graphene, and the graphene is currently made in vacuum furnaces. In fact, there are a number of vacuum furnace companies in the heat treat industry that are dabbling in this field.

The ability to extract energy from the core of the earth with essentially zero losses is the focus of the Limitless Energy Graphene Project headed by Manoj Bhargava and Ravi Sajwan. These gentlemen propose to transfer energy from roughly 4.5+ miles below our feet to the surface by using graphene, which is 100-times better at conducting than copper, lighter than air, and stronger than steel.

It transfers heat ultra-efficiently. According to Mr. Sajwan, if you apply 100°F to one end of a graphene pathway, you’ll instantly get 100°F heat at the other end of the pathway, but the middle of the pathway will remain perfectly cool. What they’re describing is 100% heat transfer with zero transmission losses. And according to Mr. Bhargava, you can go 10 feet or 10 miles, and the result is the same.

The temperature 4.5 miles below our feet ranges anywhere from 1,000°F to 7,000°F. Imagine being able to dig just deep enough to reach temperatures capable of boiling water and bring those temperature to the surface to fuel electricity-creating, steam-powered turbines.

If you’re not familiar with graphene, go to “The Google” and search for “What is graphene?” You’ll have no problem finding many explanations. I suggest looking for a short video from the University of Manchester.

CLICK HERE to be taken to an amazing YouTube video entitled, “5 Amazing Renewable Energy Ideas & Solutions for the Future.” HTT