Maintaining an even temper
March 1st 2006

Carbolite, specialist manufacturers of electric furnaces, has completed the installation of custom-built equipment for Dormer tools. The equipment has been commissioned for tempering highspeed- steel drill blanks in a continuous process without intermediate handling.

The tempering line joins an existing Carbolite rotating hearth furnace for hardening cut pieces of annealed bar at the company's factory in Nottinghamshire, where around 600,000 finished products are manufactured each week.

After hardening in the existing furnace at temperatures up to 1250°C and cooling, the drill blanks are carried by conveyor through the 13.5m tempering furnace. This has two heating sections and two cooling sections to perform the double tempering required for these products.

The line has nominal throughput of 150kg/h and has been tailored to significantly reduce the process time.

More articles from Carbolite: