Fast Response To Tooling Design For Bespoke Hardening Patterns And Depths

27th May 2016

As a result of many years' experience in tooling development and a highly skilled tool-making team, Flame Hardeners Ltd manufactures all required heat treatment tooling in-house, including both induction 'coils' and flame heating elements.

The average time for tooling development is less than two days. -However, more complicated tooling may require several days, allowing for modifications following trial hardening, sectioning and hardness traversing, says Managing Director Roger Haw. When enquiries are received for patterns of hardness in specific areas of components, either for increase of strength or to give better wear resistance, first of all consideration is given to any previous experience on similar components together with assessment of batch sizes, following which a decision is made as to which method of hardening to employ. -Flame hardening is used on large one-off components where repeat orders are likely to be infrequent, or on small components (in either one offs or even large batches) where the total area of hardening is so small that induction heating would spread heating too far, in which case a simple pencil jet type of heating source can be applied, Mr. Haw explains. -Equally, we can develop induction tooling for larger items where there may be a requirement for two or three off per year.