A heated effort
EBNER.blog | Herbert Gabriel, EBNER, USA
A heated effort.
A recently-rebuilt EBNER facility is successfully recommissioned after a fire.
On a Sunday night in late October 2020, Blue Blade made the local evening news for a very unexpected reason: a fire had destroyed a large portion of the plant roof!
Thankfully there were no injuries, but most of the production facilities had taken severe fire or water damage. Damaged equipment included the EBNER hardening and tempering line, the backbone of Blue Blade’s production.
This was even more heartbreaking due to the fact that the line had recently been upgraded to lead-free operation by retrofitting a novel quenching process, where the steel strip is quenched in a high-speed hydrogen gas jet.
EBNER sprang into action and assisted in the initial fire investigation. Once the site was released by local inves-tigators, a more thorough assessment revealed damage to just about all major process units of the line, such as the austenitizing furnace, quench, leveling furnace and tempering furnace.
Eventually, some these components were shipped to EBNER Furnaces in Wadsworth, OH were they were completely disassembled, cleaned and retrofitted with new devices. Notably, many of the piping systems and valve stands had been destroyed beyond repair and were completely rebuilt.
After sandblasting, painting, rewiring and thorough quality checks, the line components were returned to the site for installation. In the meantime, the site had undergone an impressive transformation, with new roofs, wiring, plumbing etc. Even more remarkable is that, in parallel, Blue Blade was able to install and recommission a pre-owned EBNER H/T line to maintain a certain level of production.
That this work could be executed in a relatively short time, during the height of COVID restrictions and the related supply chain issues, speaks to the commitment of the Blue Blade team and EBNER personnel.
Blue Blade and EBNER are happy to report that the HICON line is again in operation. Blue Blade can again serve their customers without restrictions and at the high level of quality Blue Blade is known for in the industry.
EBNER would like to thank Blue Blade for the close cooperation during this challenging project. Find out more about the new facility and the technology behind it in the next issue of the HICON Journal.
