License to Freeze
A seals and gaskets distributor introduces cryogenic processing to take equipment reliability service to new heights - and depths
By Ken Brack -- Industrial Distribution, 3/1/1999
Jeffrey Winkel borrows a philosophy from World War II veterans, who remarked that when artillery was fired upon them three times, it damn well couldn't be a coincidence. Winkel, the founder of a small seals and gasket distributorship near Kansas City, Mo., felt a different but still ominous threat to his company in the mid 90s. Several large customers dropped his firm as they reduced vendors, and the business was dangerously reliant on too few accounts.Then on three occasions Winkel, a former aeronautics engineer, heard about cryogenic processing, an emerging technology that improves the life and reduces wear for many metalworking tools, machine parts and other materials. He knew it was more than a coincidence.
Once the stuff of science fiction and secret NASA research, Winkel saw cryogenic processing as a way to provide a unique service to customers -- and other distributors -- and a means to survive in a rapidly consolidating industry.
He and a partner formed Cryoforce™, a company that licenses other industrial distributors to do cryotreatments, which involves deep freezing and heat tempering to improve the structure of the metals. The results for tools from twist drills to end mills and parts such as gears and bushings are more even wear, and improved thermal stability and corrosion resistance.
In addition to assembling a cryofreezer and industrial convection oven for heat treating, Cryoforce trains licensees, assigns territories, collects data on the effectiveness for various applications and provides other services.
"We're doing two things," says Winkel. "We've embarked upon a rapid growth path and we offer unique services to a clientele that can't be serviced by mega-companies."
While building the new business, Winkel also redefined the mission of Seals, Inc., from simply selling products that control leaks to providing equipment reliability services. The 22-year-old distributorship, which had 1998 revenues of just over $1 million, does cryotreatments as Cryoforce's first licensee.
Licensing network
Cryoforce's focus is to license, train and support other distributors to do cryogenic processing. While as many as a half dozen other companies manufacture cryotreatment equipment, Cryoforce CEO T. Barry Stephens and Winkel, who is chairman, say they are unaware of anyone else building a network of licensees made up of successful firms.
Cryogenic treatment of metals -- deep freezing at [-] 320°F with nitrogen gas and then heat treating at various temperatures -- is a relatively new field. NASA pioneered it in the 1960s to protect space vehicles from excessive heat changes.
During the past 15 years cryotreatment of perishable tools, machine and welding parts has grown. While it has not been fully accepted by the metallurgical industry, many end users and manufacturers report remarkable gains in tooling performance and parts wear. Racecar drivers, sportsmen and golfers also cite improved engine parts wear, relieved stress on rifles and clubs that stroke balls farther.
One Canadian company that has fabricated cryogenic equipment and processed parts for three years reports a booming business with revenues growing 500 percent during that time.
Gordon McKay, operations manager at Cryotron, Ltd. in Spruce Grove, Alberta, says machine shops and manufacturers that support the province's oil and gas industry are his major customers.
"We're at the point where some individual customers have gone to their suppliers and asked to have materials cryoed, and that's worked out," says McKay. "We get larger volumes and consistent volumes."
He says to get off the ground, Cryotron went door to door offering to treat samples of items like end mills and dies. "It involved a little missionary work at the beginning, I can assure you," says McKay.
Stephens and Winkel believe that as their data base of improved applications expands and general knowledge of cryogenics grows, more end users -- and distributors -- will embrace it.
They say cryotreatment reduces costs in five key areas for end users: new tooling; resharpen, regrind and rework tooling; scheduled down time to change tooling; labor costs; and production parts damaged when tooling is out of spec.
Cryoforce's goal is to have 20 licensees by year end and ultimately to work with more than 200 companies. Part of its business plan is to gather data on successful -- and unfruitful -- applications to establish a record of improvement for customers. That data will be shared with licensees, which must be established distributors. Winkel and Stephens typically do not treat materials that do not have a proven track record to show customers, but will try out new applications using a wear testing machine developed by students at Kansas University.
One licensee is Johnson Packing & Industrial Products, Inc., of East Longmeadow, Mass., a 73-year-old packings and fluid sealing supplier. President Brice Craven expects offering cryotreatments will expand his customer base by stressing equipment reliability and extended production. His company, which expected its first equipment to arrive this month, has already seen marked improvements in the life of pump impellers it sent to Cryoforce for treatment. Craven plans to provide the service at two locations, including a branch in Bangor, Maine.
"If NASA did it, I guess Johnson Packing can do it too," he says. "You've got to be willing to put your feet in the water and test new things and bring them to your customers. We're willing to take that risk."
Selling a deep freeze
On the wall of Stephens's office, a map of North America has three blue tacks marking where Cryoforce has agreements with licensees. In January, 30 or so white tacks also marked locations of distributor prospects which Stephens and Winkel hope to sign up -- from Texas to the Canadian Maritimes.
It took a while to get Cryoforce off the ground. In 1997 Seals, Inc. was awarded a NASA technology grant, one of the government's initiatives to bring space development-related technologies to industry. NASA had contacted Winkel a few years earlier because of his background -- he worked briefly for Pratt & Whitney after graduating with a degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Illinois.
Stephens had known Winkel 10 years before deciding to help form a new company. The two share a common background: Stephens was president at SSC Fluid Sealing Components in Pensacola, Fla., where he worked for 18 years, and the two are co-founders of the Independent Sealing Distributors. Stephens left SSC last winter in an unrelated decision. During the spring they formed a partnership, and in November Stephens became general manager of Seals, Inc. in addition to running Cryoforce.
Stephens recalls that before a trade show in Kansas City two years ago, Winkel told him he was going to exhibit cryogenically treated products.
"I came and got my interest tweaked," he says. "I saw his company get 50 leads in more than two days."
Beyond learning how to build a cryofreezer and oven, the pair overcame legal and marketing hurdles. Seven lawyers were hired to cover franchise law, anti-trust, contracts and other matters. The key was selling executives on cryogenics' profit potential, rather than tout the process. The two companies spent more than $300,000 to introduce the service.
"We're now selling financial solutions for bottom line results, speaking to CFOs rather than tool crib foremen," says Winkel.
For now, Cryoforce has only two employees: Stephens and production engineer Mark Stainbrook, who helped build the wear testing machine. Recently Stainbrook was designing a smaller, four-foot-long cryoprocessing box to both freeze and heat materials, which complements the eight-foot-long freezer. With help from some college design students, the company recently unveiled a new line of full-sized freezers and combination units.
Cool prospects
Cryoforce and Seals, Inc. are building a base in the Kansas City area, adding as many as three new customers each week. Among their recent prospects were treating fast-wearing, large hammer tips used to pound concrete, and cutters, blades and dies used for printing. One customer that weaves high tech cloth and used to throw away 65,000 sewing needles a month saw the needles' lifetime extend 20 to 30 percent after cryotreatment.
Licensing and other fees are not cheap: it costs $15,000 up front, and Cryoforce receives an eight percent service fee for most sales, plus four percent to cover advertising. The company develops videotapes, marketing materials, does advertising, negotiates contracts for nitrogen gas, updates training and more. Craven and a prospective licensee say those costs are a sound tradeoff for support, expertise and possible national contracts in the future.
"We think that for distributors that are forward thinking and looking for things and processes that will keep them independent, cryoing and our network is something they can plug right into their business," says Stephens.
Brent Tozer, president of Maritime Fluid Sealing of Miramichi, New Brunswick and Houlton, Me., calls it an attractive business for the future. He has not yet committed to becoming a Cryoforce licensee but may do so.
Tozer says most of his customers -- mostly in pulp and paper, power generation and mining -- do not know of the technology. He anticipates it will take two to three years to educate them and for the venture to take off.
"It's innovative," he says. "Everybody wants more uptime." Tozer says the fees appear reasonable given the level of technical support Cryoforce provides.
Another group watching cryotreatment closely is welding distributors. At least two impacts for them are forecasted: growing demand for nitrogen gas by distributors, and processing spot welding tips that are used in assembly lines. The treatment improves the longevity of many welding tips by making them less resistant, which Winkel says has potential to save automakers and other mass producers bundles of money.
Turning 'mom and pops' around
In the past year, Winkel and Stephens' horizons have broadened considerably. Their business plan focuses first on the industrial distribution market, and then on cryotreating golf clubs and race car engines of NASCAR drivers. Things didn't always look so robust though.
Winkel recalls a terrifying moment three years ago that prompted him to do some soul-searching about the future of his business. Seals, Inc. had suffered a series of losses - big accounts, key people leaving, even hail had damaged the roof. He was driving through a desolate stretch of prairie between Emporia and Wichita, Kan. when he got beeped, and the next phone booth was 45 minutes away.
It turned out to be just a friend who called, but Winkel had worked himself into a frenzy trying to reach a phone.
"I got real mad at myself for getting so anxious," he recalls. "I went home and into my basement for a day's retreat, and wrote down how things should be and how they weren't."
Out of that came a new focus for the distributorship, and eventually, Cryoforce. Winkel realized the distributorship, if left as it was, would be consumed by integrators and catalog houses.
He also saw that providing longer life for tools fell squarely within an equipment reliability mission, and would expand sales opportunities.
"Mom and pop distribution businesses are facing challenges like they've never seen before," he says. "This gives you a chance to run your own business and be part of the blockbuster of cryogenic processing in North America."
COMPANY SNAPSHOT
Cryoforce™, L.C.
President: T. Barry Stephens
1999 Sales Estimate: $800,000
Founded: 1998
Headquarters: Lenexa, KS
Locations: 1; 3 licensees as of 1/99
Primary products: Cryogenic processing of metalworking tools, power transmission equipment, more. Licenses, trains and supports distributors to do cryotreatment.
Web address: www.cryoforce.com
Cryo-clubs: the next frontier
Landing a deal to cryogenically treat a line of golf clubs may be the next venture for the Cryoforce™ entrepreneurs.
Cryotreatment of titanium clubs helps golfers improve their game, driving balls an extra 12 to 16 yards on average, according to Blue Sky Marketing, a Kansas City sports marketing agency. Blue Sky is working with the two partners at Cryoforce, T. Barry Stephens and Jeff Winkel, to bring the technology to the golf industry.
Cryoforce, of Lenexa, Kans., licenses industrial distributors to do cryogenic processing that improves the life and wear resistance primarily of metalworking tools and machine parts. In another new venture, Stephens and Winkel hope to sign an exclusive contract with a manufacturer to treat clubs.
In automated tests done last summer for the two companies and an unnamed club manufacturer, a treated club extended drive distance, according to Blue Sky. The treated club also showed less vibration and minimized the so-called bulge and roll effect, in which balls spring too far off many of today's "high tech" clubs. Other benefits include less vibration and redistributing the club head weight to enhance performance.
Some players on the PGA Seniors Tour already use cryotreated clubs with success, according to Stephens, who sports a nine handicap.
"There's no deal signed but we see a positive impact on that industry," Stephens said in early January. "It's a matter of getting the manufacturers convinced."
Blue Sky managing partner Greg Moser, a PGA golf pro, believes their bid to cryotreat a line of clubs may be well-timed because of a large inventory and soft sales throughout the golf equipment industry. Blue Sky hopes to use a promotional approach similar to that of computer chip manufacturer Intel Corp.
"Don't make it complicated," he says. "Just use, 'it's Cryoforced inside.'"
What is cryogenics?
For industrial distributors and their customers, cryogenics means extending the life of many tools, replacement parts and reducing production down time.
Cryogenic processing involves deep freezing and then heat tempering to improve the wear resistance of materials -- from drills, taps and dies, gears and bushings to engine cylinders, copper welding electrodes, even light bulb filaments.
The bottom line is longer wear and corrosion resistance in many metals, which become tougher and less brittle. Castings become stress relieved. Re-sharpening or redressing worn tools won't destroy the effects of cryotreatment. Tools only require one treatment, and they won't need to be re-sharpened as often.
"Cryo" means cold, and Webster's defines cryogenics as the science of "low temperature phenomena," but there's much more to the story. Materials get frozen below 300°F for 12 to 40 hours with dry nitrogen gas. Then, wear parts like steel tools, gears, saws and chains go through a gradual heat tempering process, which varies depending on the metal. By precisely controlling temperature changes, operators avoid any possibility of introducing thermal shock or stress.
NASA developed the technology in the 1960s to treat and protect space vessels from the cold of outer space and extreme heat of re-entry into the earth's atmosphere. For years it was a secret, and after the technology became known it did not become a practical treatment for industry until the late 1980s. Gains in microprocessor power made it feasible for computers to maintain precise temperatures, the key to changing the molecular structure, which extends the life of tools and other materials.
In carbon-based steels such as tool steels, the softer austenite structure gets completely converted to martensite, which has a desirable, durable fine-grained structure that is wear resistant to metal, plastic and other materials. Existing carbon molecules get evenly dispersed, and many small carbide particles are created which fit in between the larger ones and create added strength.
Studies that document the industrial benefits of cryogenic treatment have been conducted at Louisiana Tech University by Dr. Randall Barron, a retired professor in the Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department widely regarded as a leading authority. According to the Cryogenic Society of America (www.csa.fnal.gov/), Barron says that while results vary, a two- to sevenfold-increase in the life of alloy tool steels used to make end mills, twist drills, reamers and other cutting tools is typical.
Source: Cryoforce, L.C., Cryotron Ltd., the Cryogenic Society of America, Inc., American Machinist.
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