New Lab for Western PA
91´«Ã½ of Western PA recently invested over $200,000 on new testing equipment and constructing an air-tight quality and inspection laboratory. This state-of-the-art addition to the Hermitage facility will give our customers faster cumulative turnarounds times for critical vacuum heat treating and testing jobs.
A new, fully-automatic Struers DuraScan 70 Microhardness tester is the centerpiece of this high-tech lab. This low-load tester can read both Knoop and Vickers scales without recalibration. Final testing required for Solar’s newer processes, such as vacuum carburizing will be enhanced with this feature.
Additional new Stuers equipment to compliment the DuraScan tester includes the Discotom-6 automatic cut off machine, the CitoPress-1 automatic electro-hydraulic mounting press and the Tegramin-20 automatic polishing machine.
To house this technology and workspace, a 625 sq ft air-conditioned room was created by removing walls, adding insulation, replacing the old drop ceiling with drywall, resealing the floor with an epoxy coating, installing new T5 lighting, and LED lighting over the new Microhardness tester.