Last year was a good year for MagnaTech and the glass ball
appears to promise more of the same for 2014. MagnaTech has just completed a
two-year effort to develop a hard, wear and corrosion resistant surface on
either martensitic or low alloy steels. The goal was to modify the surface to
provide a hardness of greater than 60 HRC to a minimum depth of 0.040 inch.
MagnaTech has done this in two hours, a much shorter time than is currently
used in commercial practice. The intent is to replace hardfaced surfaces on
hook points at lower cost, and with a surface that is more friendly to people
and the environment. The application was for Navy aircraft that land on
aircraft carriers. MagnaTech accomplished all of the technical objectives,
demonstrated capability, provided more data than required, on time, and at
significantly reduced cost. MagnaTech is currently requesting a continuation of
the contract to do additional work to develop the technology further.
In
addition, MagnaTech has just submitted a proposal to the Air Force to use the
technology we have developed to provide hard, wear and corrosion resistant
surfaces to Air Force aircraft with landing gears having similar capability.
MagnaTech currently has two patents issued to protect the technology and two
more are pending.
MagnaTech
is also competing for a Phase III contract to advance the technology to
commercial value. The Navy has contracted with Dawnbreaker in Rochester, New
York, to assist MagnaTech with this process. MagnaTech is currently seeking
partners, joint efforts and licensing to advance the technology. MagnaTech
knows that it’s strength is in research, but would seek to join in a
cooperative effort with a heat treater, a furnace manufacturer, or other, to
establish licensing or preferably a plant where they control production, but
MagnaTech would have access to the furnace for experimental purposes.
MagnaTech
is also investigating our first venture into 3 D printing. Currently a customer
is exploring an application that requires large complex parts. The trick is to
find a company that can handle the size required. The problems will be
transporting the printed object to the debinding oven and the sintering furnace
in a fragile state without causing damage to the plate or the detail contained
therein. This should be a challenging but rewarding job.
Last,
MagnaTech continues to help MIM fabricators to develop parts with magnetic
properties that are required by their customers. Contamination and porosity are
always a problem when the customer requires fast response when action is
required. So far we have not seen any parts that will come close to justify the
cost and manufacturing required for fast reaction to occur. With all of this
potential in progress, you can well understand that MagnaTech looks forward to
another outstanding challenging year. If you have materials problems, we would
welcome the opportunity to assist you in resolving these issues.
