There’s a new resident in the basement of Lehigh University’s Whitaker Lab that’s been attracting a lot of attention even before getting fully settled in.
“People have been knocking on my door asking, ‘Is it ready?’” since the day the vacuum heat treating and brazing furnace was delivered, says Wojciech Misiolek, professor and chair of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science.
The new addition, a $300,000 commercial-grade model called The Mentor, was donated by thermal processing company Solar Atmospheres and its CEO and founder, William R. Jones. Its sister company, Solar Manufacturing, designs and builds vacuum furnaces at its location in Souderton, Pennsylvania, just 23 miles from Lehigh’s campus.