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Electric History - Letter to IHI Master Metals
History of Electric Induction Heating

This Chapter

Induction Heating
  1. Early work to Salesman
  2. Salesman to entrepreneur
  3. Vacuum furnaces
  4. Henry Rowan, Mars Rocket
  5. Cheston, Cragmet, IRS
  6. Visit Russia, Meet Vera
  7. Around the world, Meet the president
  8. Kramatorsk
  9. Consarc
  10. Consarc UK
  11. Carbon contract
  12. Russians in Scotland
  13. The Embargo is Coming
  14. Embargo and Aftermath
  15. BEPA
  16. After BEPA
  17. Fiber Materials Appeal
  18. Consarc Officials Deny Wrongdoing in Sales to Soviets
  19. Memos from Henry Rowan to Metcalf
  20. Rowland motor patent 1868
  21. Rowland reviews the bids for Niagara Falls power station
  22. Metcalf's father's poem, and Metcalf genealogy
  23. The Peace Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
  24. Problems of Russia's Policy With Respect to China and Japan
  25. History of Ajax Magnethermic
  26. The most important event for Inductotherm
  27. Fright Flight
  28. Black art of carbon production
  29. Polaris Missile
  30. Nuclear Airplane
  31. Nuclear Engine
  32. Molten metal eats through and explodes
  33. Cannon Muskegon Corporation
  34. Metcalf at General Motors Research from April 1955 to Oct 1955
  35. Metcalf pouring superalloy at GE from Oct 1955 to June 1956
  36. Metcalf at Waimet (later Howmet) from June 1956 to July 1957
  37. Black art of carbon production
  38. Project to test NASA hot hydrogen engine
  39. Special Metals Number 9
  40. Metcalf joins Inductotherm group
  41. Device to load materials into a furnace for melting
  42. Bank reneged on a commitment to finance a job in Russia
  43. Inductotherm private airport
  44. NERVA (Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application) and all I know about carbon
  45. NERVA Engine Control Rods
  46. same as 383-Nuke.html
  47. Development of Polaris missle
  48. Ajax NASA
  49. Production of carbon fabrics and threads made from rayon
  50. George Houghton, Aerojet Inspector gives Metcalf Rocket history
  51. Rayon to carbon to graphite
  52. Metcalf buys the control division of the Pelton Water Wheel Company
  53. Rowan's account of firing Consarc President
  54. Kama Purchasing Commission, Ukraine
  55. Role of chromium in vacuum melters
  56. ASEA wins contract for isopress
  57. Induction heating to re-refile tank cannon
  58. Hoover-Ugine Company
  59. Letter to Henry Rowan at Inductotherm
  60. John Mortimer in Rancocas
  61. Consarc Board of Directors Meeting
  62. Consarc Board of Directors Meeting
  63. Hillbilly
  64. How to produce Calcarb
  65. Newsday, late 1987
  66. Embargo Regulations
  67. Seizure of Goods
  68. Minutes of Dept of Trade, London
  69. Minutes of ECGD Meeting
  70. Rowan Interview
  71. Bombshell looks like dud
  72. Letter to Hank Rowan
  73. Consarc Board Meeting
  74. Minutes of DTI Meeting, London
  75. Stansted Fluid Power
  76. Minutes of DTI Meeting, 3 Oct 85
  77. Letter to IHI Master Metals

Induction Heating

By James Farol Metcalf

Letter to IHI Master Metals

To: IHI Master Metals 28 June 1989

T. Yamaguchi

From: James F. Metcalf

I have studied your specifications. We are making the project too expensive to have a decent return on the investment.

The tail is wagging the dog. We must find a better way to handle the metal for the air melting portion of your task. We also must construct a simple chamber which will achieve our objectives while at the same time allowing enough room in front of the furnace to do all the other things on a step by step basis.

The first step is to study how much money can be spent on the whole project and then skillfully buy the maximum you can. One way to do that is to become the prime contractor yourself under the control of a very practical project engineer. The other way is to select a prime contractor and define his tasks very clearly so his costs are very clear. This was the purpose of the engineering study. As it turned out the study asked more questions than it answered.

While reading your specifications it is clear that you have done a lot of thinking. You are now well prepared to take a clean sheet and redefine the task in a more simple way. Some ideas are nice but as they grow they become more expensive. The objectives are now clear in my mind. Keeping all of them in a simple and economical way is the task ahead.

Marino of Consarc does not have a problem dealing with FIC now. He may have problems with the commercial side because FIC does not have an experienced engineer and business man in the vacuum furnace field. They will want to put all the risk on Consarc that will cause the price to increase. Consarc and Inductotherm may have a problem if Mr. Oka is part of the contract. (But maybe not.)

Marino had the correct facts about my involvement with Soderstrom's activities in Japan and will meet with Mr. Rowan to explain. A satisfactory solution that will allow me to bridge the risks will be found when you have money in your pocket. As your project consultant, I could assist FIC so their engineers would understand how to avoid risks.

We will work something out. I will still need a license from the United States government before working on specific designs of vacuum melting furnaces for superalloy.

Please let me know in advance the exact date you will need me in Japan. Questions which you asked in your last fax are better answered in person to include options to be used during the purchasing period.

Regards,

Rowan was probably fuming because some ugly rumors were circulating in Rancocas. FIC, Soderstrom, and Metcalf were setting up a business! Consarc's old agent in Japan (FIC) was IMM's export agent. Business ties in Japan were very complex.

BEPA Corp.

One Longfellow Place 1723

Boston, MA 02114

Tel./Fax (617) 367 1583

To: WJ Marino

From: JF Metcalf 28 June 1989

When we last met you were told that I was not going to keep sitting without a task to do.

I have been quite busy with a project not related to vacuum melting or carbon.

Recent major openings of areas and factories in the Soviet Union have allowed me to find a very cheap source of rayon scrap derived carbon fiber. A factory in the Ukraine is already equipped with furnaces and the like to make rigid carbon board. The actual cost of natural gas in that region is unbelievable. The temptation to proceed is overwhelming, but I have not yet made a decision.

I heard on the grapevine that you believed that the IHI job was going to be handled through FIC, Shin-Nittetsu and Don Soderstrom (somehow with me at the controls). You were in Iraq when I called so I spoke to Rowan instead.

He was so bitter that I was barely able to finish the conversation. He accused me of setting up Soderstrom with Mr. Oka. I have lived up to the terms of the agreement of the split of the scope of the pending job that we reached in your offices in February 1988 in every way. I have not had meaningful communications with Yamaguchi since he was turned away from Calcarb more than one year ago. Yes, I did plan to use Soderstrom in the construction phase, but not as a partner of Oka.

The arrangement between IMM and FIC as seller of their metals is deep, and IMM has reason to be concerned with the battle between Consarc and FIC if one exists.

This morning I contacted Yamaguchi for the first time since June 1988. He now appears to be ready to buy a furnace from Consarc.

The new specifications that he sent me seem to be very complex. The design study that we did for him eighteen months ago was made without much thought on how to achieve the many objectives, which he wishes to achieve, in a more simple way.

My mind has been busy for the past year on a better and more effective way to carry out the VIM process. The new concept belongs to me, and I would like to see it installed somewhere.

Under the present circumstances it would appear that I must take a contract with IMM to act in his best interests without Soderstrom in the picture. I can see no other way. Can you?

It would be my plan that IMM should buy the best Consarc and Inductotherm has to offer on terms agreeable to the parties. At the same time, it must be a design that I would be proud to stand by in the future and accomplish my new objectives for the melting process. Maybe we should meet in the USA before we meet in Japan at the end of July.

Regards,

Jimmy