Flame Hardeners People

Paul Hornby

Paul is one of our highly skilled technical team. He has worked at Flame Hardeners for 31 years and has extensive experience in progressive flame hardening.

As you can see, he takes on items large and small. He enjoys the variety of work sent by our many customers and in a typical week he will harden gears, sprockets, cams, wheels, slideways, press tools - in fact, almost any component that requires selective hardening.
 

The materials that he will harden include medium carbon steels, low alloy steels, and tool steels. A wide range of components that have been hardened by Paul are in operation in cranes, mining equipment, construction and quarry equipment, conveyors, glass works, printing presses, steel works, food machinery, ships, fork lift trucks, mineral works, bottling and packaging plants all over the world.
 

Progressive Surface Hardening

The necessary heat is applied to a thin strip of material across the surface to be hardened. A source of quench is applied immediately behind the heat. Relative movement is applied between the work piece and the heating tool to provide heating and immediate quenching as the hardening operation ‘progresses’ along the component.

This process is suitable for cam tracks, gear teeth, bearing tracks, keyways, slideways and wear strips, and some tooling pieces

Customer Profile - Pennine Industrial Equipment

Flame Hardeners’ expertise ensures quality of vital component for Pennine Industrial Equipment

Consistent quality, together with technical knowledge and experience, makes Flame Hardeners Ltd. the supplier of choice for hardening of conveyor drive sprockets manufactured by Pennine Industrial Equipment Ltd.

Established over 40 years ago, Pennine Industrial Equipment is one of only five major manufacturers in the world that produces steel inverted tooth conveyor chains, together with drive and driven sprockets, for hot-end handling of container glass and glass tableware. Pennine Industrial exports to over 50 countries world-wide.

“The glass industry accounts for around 90% of our business,” for the Inverted Tooth conveyor chains explains Sales Director, Graham Womersley. “The components we manufacture have to work in a very harsh environment and the downtime of bottle making machinery is extremely costly. The quality of the sprocket and, therefore, the consistency of hardening is very important.

“Flame Hardeners has been handling all our sprockets for the past eight years. No other supplier is as consistently good and has the technical knowledge and experience of Roger Haw in particular and Flame Hardeners in general. With the value of the materials, process and product concerned it critical that hardening is accurate and consistent. It’s a small but vital component that must be hardened correctly.”

The sprockets vary in size and shape, with the smallest being 75mm dia. and the largest at 400mm dia. They are manufactured from C45 Carbon Steels and SG600 Grey Cast Iron, with required hardness varying between 45-62 Rockwell C.

“The correct hardness in terms of both depth and surface on the sprockets is extremely important as the life of the sprocket directly affects the conveyor chain that runs on it, which in turn affects bottle stability – and, consequently, how customers perceive our chain.”

Mr. Womersley concludes: “We can always rely on Flame Hardeners to give good technical advice, ‘trouble-shooting’ when required, and we regularly discuss our requirements with them in terms of materials etc. They also provide an excellent and very prompt delivery service. We have found them to be very flexible and accommodating, to enable us to meet our customer requirements. We have great confidence in Flame Hardeners’ abilities and can always trust them to do a good job. I would recommend them without question.”

 

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