Heat Treat Radio #85: Salt Bath Heat Treating with Kolene Corporation

HTT · Heat Treat Radio #85: Salt Bath Heat Treating with Kolene Corporation

The following transcript has been edited for your reading enjoyment.

Doug Glenn (DG): Well, welcome everyone to another episode of Heat Treat Radio. I’m really excited today to be talking about salt bath heat treating with the good people at Kolene Corporation. Let me introduce the folks and then we’ll get rolling.

First off, gentlemen, welcome to Heat Treat Radio, I’m really glad to have you. The first person I would like to introduce is Ken Minoletti who is vice president of Thermal Processing at Upton Industry, now a Kolene Corporation company. Ken has 45 years of experience in all areas of the company operations relating to the design and manufacture of salt bath furnace systems and other thermal processing systems. When Kolene purchased Upton in 2021, retaining Ken was a critical part of the terms of the sale. He’s an expert in the field and well respected in the industry. I have known Ken for many, many years. Ken, it’s really good to be visiting with you today.

Ken Minoletti (KM):  Thank you for the invitation, Doug.

DG:  The next person is Dennis McCardle. He is the executive VP of Kolene Corporation and has 34 years of experience at Kolene in all aspects of salt bath manufacturing and operation. As executive VP, he is very well respected and considered an expert in salt bath technologies for industry, serving hundreds of customers. Dennis, welcome, it’s really good to see you. I’ve known you for many years as well.

Dennis McCardle (DM):  Thank you, Doug.

DG:  And finally, last but not least by any stretch: Jay Mistry, senior sales representative of heat-treating chemicals at Kolene and Upton. Jay came to Kolene in 2001, as well, with 33 years of experience at Park Thermal International as their former CEO. Jay is a high-energy, forward thinker, which I can attest. He cultivates and maintains strong industry relationships as the head of Kolene’s heat treat chemical sales. Jay is a wealth of important historical information and ideas.

So, there you go. Gentlemen, you sound good to me already!

We were talking before we hit the record button that when I read these bios, I said, “Boy, we sound good.” Fortunately, we can say, those are true. It’s really good to have you guys.

We want to talk about salt bath heat treat a bit. Just for the listeners, I want to lay out a bit of an outline. What we’re going to do is we’re going to talk a bit about Kolene Corporation first because there’s been some pretty significant activity at Kolene. We’re going to talk to Dennis about that for a minute. Then, we’re going to talk about the equipment -- salt bath equipment; we’re going to talk to Ken mostly about that. Then, we’re going to talk about materials.

I want to talk to you a bit about Kolene. There is a lot of activity over there.

DM:  There’s a lot of activity. We’re very excited.

DG:  Tell us a bit about the history, first, very briefly.

DM:   Sure, my pleasure. Kolene Corporation was founded in 1939. We’re a privately held, small business in Detroit. We’re a single-source supplier of process equipment, process chemistries, technical service and support, R & D, development, lab support services, engineering design capabilities -- I mean, we’ve got basically the whole gamut of supply chain.

Our processes are used in a wide variety of industries, Doug, so it’s really hard to go into them all. But typically, the difficult metal cleaning applications is where we’ve made our bones.

Then, when you look at it in 2021, we entered the heat treat marketplace with the acquisition of Upton Industries. It is a renowned name in the heat-treating industry, of both supplier of equipment but also technologies. We also, at the same time, took on the industry-proven chemistries of Park Thermal International. Those chemistries are really the lifeblood of what we’re going to be doing in the heat treat industry.

We’re very excited about the future and what we see coming along. When you think about it, both Ken and I were talking, and now, with the combined companies, we have 170 years of salt bath experience. It’s unbelievable synergy that we bring to our company now. It’s really exciting.

DG:  That is exciting. I want to be clear on before the acquisition of Upton and things of that sort. What were the core markets that you guys were serving? You mentioned it was metal cleaning?

DM:  Metal cleaning, yes. When you look at it traditionally, when we were initially founded, we were doing cast iron cleaning for the navy. We still do that process that was developed in the forties. When you look at it, steel, of course, to scaling, is the largest portion of our business. We also are in the engine remanufacturing sector, the aerospace sector. We’ve got a great deal of breadth, if you will, of the different industries that we supply our cleaning technologies too.

DG:  The company has been around a long time. You mentioned Upton as being a well-established name. I have been in the industry a long time; I’ve heard of Kolene for quite a long time, even in the thermal processing industry, heat treat industry, if you will. You guys have been around.

DM:  We have, yes.

DG: Before we move on to Ken and ask him some questions about the equipment, specifically, I’m curious -- and I’m sure many people out there would like to know -- What is driving this? You’ve acquired two companies, basically. What’s behind it? It sounds like you’re on a growth mode.

DM:  We are. We’re a family-held company. We’re in our fourth generation now. We have always looked at that sector, the heat treat sector, as an opportunity. Obviously, when we were doing the salt bath nitriding, we touched on it a bit, but we really didn’t get into it as we wanted to see and experience. When we looked at it, it was always in the back of our minds, should we enter that marketplace?, It was one of the owner’s sons, Tim Shoemaker, who really started making the inroads of -- Why don’t we go after this? Why don’t we look at this more seriously? He was the driving influence along with his brother, Peter, to move into this. The opportunity arose. Everything fell together just beautifully at the right time, place, and it just worked out fantastic.

DG:  Let me transition over to Ken because I want to just kind of piggyback on that. Dennis, thank you very much. I want to talk to Ken just a minute about the whole acquisition -- Upton becoming a part of Kolene. Can you give us a quick overview of how that happened?

KM:  Sure. Obviously, everybody looks to continue the longevity of the corporation as we proceed. We’re all not getting any younger! Upton was started in 1937, so we were two years ahead of Kolene Corporation. It had always appeared, in my opinion, to be a very good fit. They are parallel lines of salt bath treatment. We actually competed against Kolene for a number of years, primarily, but we found our mainstay to be in the heat treat industry when it came to thermal processing. The passing of the president of our company opened up the potential for the merger or acquisition, and it worked out very well. We worked with the Shoemaker family and came to an agreement back in October. So, we’re really completing our first year from October of 2021. We’re one year into our leadership as a Kolene company. But they said they understand the importance of the brand name of Upton and, obviously, that will not be going away.

DM:  It is a key point. That name is really very important to us in the branding. It’s something we don’t ever want to lose.

DG:  Both those companies are very good names in the industry -- Park Thermal International and Upton.

So, Ken, Upton has been located where?

KM:  We’re in suburban Detroit in Roseville. We’re probably about a half hour drive door-to-door with the Detroit campus.

DG:  Is that location going to stay, or are you going to consolidate?

KM:  We’re going to stay, yes.

DG:  Let’s talk about the salt bath equipment. A lot of the people who listen to this are manufacturers who have their own in-house heat treat. I’m guessing a large portion of them have stuff that’s not salt bath, although I’m quite sure there are some that do. Talk to those people who don’t have salt baths at this point. Why should they be considering salt bath equipment?

KM:  Some of the big advantages, number one is temperature uniformity (+/-5 degrees Fahrenheit), being a conductive liquid, meeting the spec of AMS2750. Plus, its variables -- you can really run multiple differing grades of materials through the furnace merely buying limited by the operating temperature range of the salts. You run carbon steels, alloys. It’s a simple operation -- there are no generators, there is no carbon balancing for an atmosphere, so you don’t decarb. You rectify the bath to maintain pH, and that will prevent decarburization.

DG:  How about the different processes that can be run? In a salt bath, what are the different processes that can be run?

KM:  Our core business is neutral hardening. Austempering, marquenching and tempering, be it in salt or oil, aluminum solution treating for the aircraft industry, and also aluminum dip brazing. We’re becoming the worldwide leader in the supply of dip brazing equipment. and we have really opened up in the international markets. Again, it’s that temperature uniformity aspect of the equipment.

One sector that’s been taking off is the processing of Nitinol material for the medical industry. Again, uniformity. Molten salt heat transfer systems where the salt bath is generating, obviously, going to discharge into other equipment for heating practices.

A final one that’s unique is ion-exchange glass hardening. Cellphones. It provides for the transfer in the atomic structure of the potassium element into the glass, Gorilla Glass. We’ve talked over the years with quite a few manufacturers. It’s a little bit of a niche market, but it is beginning to expand.

DG:  That’s interesting! I’ve heard a lot about the processing of Gorilla Glass. I didn’t realize that some of that is done in salt.

KM:  Along with aircraft windshields and a whole myriad of glass products that can be done in a molten salt bath furnace.

That’s kind of our core industry of what thermal processes we utilize.

DG:  I want to come back to the dip braze, for a second. In dip braze, typically what type of materials are we brazing together? Is it a copper braze? How does it work?

KM:  It’s strictly aluminum. A furnace that will run within the salt range, I believe it’s about 1170-1200 Fahrenheit. It’s 61-grade of aluminum. It goes through extensive cleaning practice. You’ll preheat gradually for no distortion. You’ll have your fillermetals in place; it’s textured on the product. They’ll dip braze usually within 45 seconds. The filler metal melts. It’s removed; it’s either air-cooled, fog or immersion quenched.

DG:  Is that the type of brazing that takes place, like with clad material? Are you talking about heat exchangers and things of that sort?

KM:  I’m talking about heat exchangers. We’re talking about wave guides, antenna, any number of products, primarily into the communications, satellite, aerospace industries.

DG:  Typically, those braze processes, the temperature tolerances have got to be within 5 degrees because otherwise you start melting down either your base or your fins or whatever.

KM:  Yes. The criticality of brazing in the aerospace industry is definitely one advantage that molten salts have.

DG:  One last question for you, Ken, well actually two. The materials that you’re processing -- did we hit on that already?

KM:  In neutral hardening, it can be medium to high-grade carbon steels, alloys. Obviously, the aluminum, the Nitinol materials, stainless steels somewhat. Again, you’re really only limited by the temperature operating range of the bath. You can run tool steels to 150 degrees.

DG:  One last question I’ve got for you on this is:  In your experience, you’ve probably seen ebbs and flows as far as interest in salt bath heat treating. Where are we on that spectrum right now? Are we at the peak, are we growing, where are we?

KM:  I think we’re still growing. Again, one of the avenues is the aerospace -- aluminum dip brazing. Neutral hardening, the advantage of the conductive heating in a liquid, you can heat material up. Kind of a rule of thumb is 3-4 times faster than you can in an atmosphere furnace. If you’re able to heat up more quickly, it will reduce the size of the equipment. Plant floor spaces are always at a high commodity opposed to a potential continuous atmosphere line. It can be run by a single operator, delivering a rack of lawnmower blades every 8 minutes. You’ll offload 120 lawnmower blades.  It is very, very high-volume production.

DG:  Jay, I want to jump over to you with a few questions. Materials in salts and things of that sort, I’m probably going to ask you the most difficult questions. When we deal with salts, I know immediately most peoples’ minds go to -- “Uh oh, salts, I’ve got to be careful.” Let’s talk about that for just a little bit. Are there any types of new materials, if you will, new media out there that people should know about, new salts or things of that sort?

Jay Mistry (JM):  The salt products have not really changed very much over the years. You have your standard neutral salts and the quench salts. They haven’t changed a whole lot over the decades. That is good for all the customers using the product because they want that continuity.

The most difficult sell to a customer is when you start changing salts. That seems to create some problems because the specs have already been established for what type of salts to use. When you start playing with the formulations and things like that, that discourages a lot of customers from trying new things. A lot of them are aerospace-based, automotive-based, and they need to get the approvals from those sources before they make any of those changes. So, you tend to maintain those salts with very little changes.

DG:  And I assume, the reason they’re given those specs -- let’s say they’re aerospace specs or whatever -- is because they want to be sure that the salts are cleaned off, that the salts have the same properties during the thermal process, that they’re able to be cleaned off as well, is that right? Is there anything else that is of concern?

JM:  100%. Salt maintenance in the salt bath, desludging in the case of brazing salts, sheeting -- all of those things are crucial to maintaining a good salt bath system, achieving temperature uniformity, and getting excellent results. All of those things go hand in hand, for sure.

DG:  The other question I’ve got for you is a supply chain question. We’re recording this the last day of September (2022) and supply chains are messed up, let’s just say.

ALL:  They’re challenged. They’re totally challenged.

DG:  How about on salts, Jay -- are we having any supply chain issues?

JM:  We still have challenges and so on in terms of raw materials but Pete Shoemaker and his group have done a fantastic job making sure that our needs are met. Deliveries sometimes alter based on deliveries of raw materials, but we still continue.

Costs are difficult to hold at any given time; they are everchanging. We spend a lot of time with our customers to try and explain the changes in costs. Salt products have generally been very stable, but today’s world has changed everything. As opposed to holding pricing for 3 months to 6 months, now you’re literally changing from an order to an order, and that’s difficult for a lot of our customers.

DG:  You and I were talking, about customers who might want to change suppliers. Let’s say somebody is having a supply chain issue with their current supplier and they want to come over and talk to Jay Mistry about buying salts from Kolene/Park Thermal International.

We discussed a little bit about the concern about mixing salts. Can you address that a little bit? Are there any concerns there we need to worry about?

JM:  Going back earlier when I mentioned that not much has changed in the salt products, per se, and that’s in line with in keeping with the salt supplies that we have with the current customers.

To answer your question, the formulations are essentially the same from one product to the other, and so customers really have nothing to worry about blending one salt to the other. In fact, it’s to their advantage to have a secondary source or alternate sources because of supply chain issues. But a lot of them have concerns. They don’t have a chemical background, so there is always the hesitation changing formulations and so on. But we can match any salt product that’s out there, and our clients would be able to use it without any interruption.

DG:  Even if there was a question and they’d like validation, I assume you guys could probably do some sort of chemical analysis of their salts and verify that there’s going to be no problem, if necessary.

JM:  Absolutely. We have a full lab here that we could do salt analysis. In fact, we provide a service for quarterly analysis and maintenance and so on.

DG:  Salts are hazardous, Jay. How do you address that? When I hear of salts, I automatically think, “Oh, boy, the EPA is going to be knocking at my door.”

JM:  There is no doubt -- they are a hazardous product. One has to be aware of proper handling, disposal issues, and so on. But I think with Ken’s group, our group at Kolene, we can educate the customer and help them through all of the regulatory processes and make them aware.

Handling the products, as Ken mentioned, is not very labor-intensive. Typically, one guy can run a salt line, type of thing. From a worker exposure, it’s minimized. The continuous lines that Ken’s facility provides, it’s always an enclosed system with the proper exhaust system. So, all of those effluents and emissions are taken care of and handled. We just spend extra time with new customers to make them feel comfortable with using salt products. Once they get the hang of it, I think most of them would say that their worries were unfounded.

DG:  Ken, do you agree? I mean, this is the handling of salts. Does the cost/benefit analysis of going to a salt line far outweigh the downside?

KM:  I think so. As Jay was talking about the discretional areas (maybe east coast/west coast as far as remediation), strict remediation is going to vary from locale to locale what your discharge requirements are. Out of the automated systems, we build strictly vent to atmosphere; there is no wet scrubber or any type of remediation on the fume. You will have metallic oxides in the disposal media from the bottom of the high heat pot; that always needs to be analyzed to determine what is the proper disposal method. Nitrate salts, any thermal process equipment company is going to be quenching in nitrates. We’re austempering, they’re austempering. It’s the common challenge of the industry, because it is the same equipment, same process.

DG:  Dennis, how about you? Any comments on this whole concept of the hazards of salts? I mean, you guys have been doing this for decades, right?

DM:  We’ve been doing it for decades, Doug, and we’ve, over time, optimized our systems and our processes to minimize any hazards or any potential risk. I mean, we take a great deal of pride in building a properly designed system that minimizes exposure, minimizes anything that could come along in the way of hazard. So, we’ve learned through the years how to do it, and we’ve gotten very good at doing it.

KM:  This also opens up an avenue for our Roseville campus -- we can rely on Detroit on given situations where we need to take a more critical look at remediation.

DG:  Focusing more on the heat treat side of things -- any interesting case studies that you can tell us about where somebody has either purchased equipment, purchased salts or whatever, that has just really been helpful to them?

KM:  With regard to processing salt -- repeatability. Your quench transfer, quench delay -- that is all PLC controlled. We use encoders, variable speed drives. Our Dan Murphy has done an excellent job in that capacity over the years. Again, it’s just everything can program into a PLC, everything is brought in by ethernet communication. We actually have a module that Dan uses which allows him onto their plant floor from our engineering department in Roseville. He can debug issues if programs are a problem.

DG:  A little Industry 4.0 or whatever we’re calling it.

JM:  One of the things to remember in the salt, when we talk about heat treat, and Ken mentioned Nitinol medical sources, we, at Park, went through a scenario with a customer that was having issues with his salt bath. We managed to help him clean the bath out and recharge it. But the interesting point with this customer was that he was producing the glass capsules that go into an EpiPen which is crucial for a lot of people out there. With the recent pandemic, all of the syringes, the billions of syringes used, that’s all heat treated in connection with what Ken was saying with glass tempering. And that’s a salt process that’s actually right out there for everybody to experience. Without the heat treating, the glass tempering, we wouldn’t be able to produce needles, EpiPens and things of that nature.

DG:  One last question:  You guys know your customers very well, much better than I do. If there was a single message you would want to throw out there to your customers/potential customers, what would it be? Dennis, if you don’t mind, we’ll start with you. What’s the message you want to leave with them here about salt bath?

DM:  I think salt baths, as you said, they can oftentimes bring a bit of trepidation in regards to whether I want to put a salt bath into my facility. But I think when you really set foot and talk with us about what we’re doing today, about the systems that we design today, I think you are really going to be put in a comfort zone when you see the efforts that we go through from a design and engineering standpoint, and all aspects of it. I mean, we take a great deal of pride in bringing not only the best system as is available, technology wise, but also in keeping people’s comfort levels at a good position through training. When we go and put a system in, we train people on how to operate it, how to work it safely. We take it very seriously when we put a system in making sure everyone fully understands the operation and fully understands that they can come to us at any time. We’re there 24/7 to take their questions and to help them and provide assistance. We try to be a one stop source for all of that.

DG:  I assume, also, Dennis, that if anyone out there has a question and just isn’t quite sure if they want to do salt, I assume there are probably places you can take them to show them some installed lines.

DM:  Absolutely. And that’s the sort of relationship that we have with our customers. Depending on the process, we can almost always get them to see a facility that’s operating a system today.

DG:  It’s always good when your customers let you back into the plant -- that’s a good sign!

Jay, how about you? Any last message? Then, Ken, we’ll finish up with you.

JM:  Just to follow-up on what Dennis said:  I think the biggest advantage all of our customers, or potential customers, would have is that we are the single source for anything related to equipment to process to operation to pump outs -- from start to finish. You make one phone call and we’re here to answer all of it. You don’t need to go to many various people. So, it truly is a one stop shop where you can get all your answers with one phone call.

DG:  Ken, how about you?

KM:  I agree 100% with Dennis and Jay. The only thing I would add is being allowed the opportunity to communicate with customers. Don’t dismiss something at face value just because the rumor mill is saying it’s nasty, you’re going to have hazardous waste and everything else. Allow us to present the advantages of the equipment. I think a lot of times that opens a lot of eyes. Everybody thinks of the old salt pot furnace with salt over the floor. That’s not the issue anymore. They’re automated, enclosed, they’re ventilated, and limited operator access. There are advantages.

DG:  Gotcha. So, basically don’t believe the questions I was asking about the nastiness of salts. I threw that out there just as devil’s advocate. I do think that’s probably a great point to conclude on is that, listen, if you have thoughts from the past, ideas and perceptions from the past of salt bath, let’s not limit to that. At least give it a shot.

DM:  Come and see us. Come and ask us. Let us show you what we’re doing today. It’s a remarkable advancement from what we had 80 years ago.

KM:  As Dennis said, we can use a referral to a customer, we can do site visits. Upton Roseville has always been the advantage we have a very good customer base. We always had the dialogue to be able to bring potential Upton customers in to take a look.

DG:  Well, it sounds to me, gentlemen, like Kolene/Upton/Park Thermal is on the upswing. I congratulate you. I congratulate you guys and look forward to talking with you again. Thanks for your time, today, I really appreciate it.