Gilberts, Ill.--Induction heating technology has been around for decades, but it was only in the late 1990s that Tom Gough said he figured out how to use it to improve his efficiency as an autobody technician.
“My first intent was to fast-cure metal bond adhesives so I could get the panels to the paint department faster,” Gough said. “I tried it out and it did what I thought it would do.”
The discovery was the first step in Gough’s transformation from technician to entrepreneur. Today he leads Induction Innovations, which manufacturers and sells induction tools to body and mechanical shops, auto recyclers, and automotive glass installers.
Gough said his education about induction heating technology came courtesy of an electrical engineer who served with him on a local volunteer fire department crew. Like an induction heating cooktop that is cool to the touch but quickly boils the water in a pot placed on it, Induction Innovation’s line of tools use a high-frequency magnetic field that creates heat when it comes in close proximity to metal.
“It creates electrical current to the metal, and the resistance of the metal determines how much heat is generated,” he said.
Gough said he took a crude prototype of an induction heating tool that he asked his fellow firefighter to make for him to his body shop and soon discovered a number of uses.
Because it heats only metal, Gough said he found he could use it to remove stripes or moldings quickly, and unlike when using a heat gun, the adhesive residue remains on the cool vinyl or plastic rather than on the metal panel.
“I took stripes off a car in just seconds, and I thought, ‘Holy cow.’” he said. “Then I had to pull the quarter-glass out of an Impala and could do that in minutes rather than hours. I thought, ‘We’re on to something here.’”
After a patent search, Gough said he first sold the tools through a booth at NACE in 2000. With only a prototype and a promise of an eight-week build time, he said he sold 40 units.
When he sold twice that number at the following year’s NACE, Gough said he decided it was time to quit his nearly three-decade career as a body technician and run the fledgling induction heating tool business full-time.
Induction Innovations now offers a variety of models ranging from a handheld unit (the “Mini-Ductor”) that technicians can use to nearly instantly turn stubborn nuts, bolts, gears, and bearings red-hot, to a high-powered, cart-mounted unit that while still operating on 120-volt power, can speed removal of glass, moldings, spray-in bedliners and vinyl graphics.
Gough said grinding off self-leveling seam sealer on Lincoln Navigators, for example, is a messy process that can take 45 minutes and camouflage the welds.
“With this, you pull it off in one clean strip as it if were a body side molding,” he said. “It’ll take less time, you don’t have the mess to clean up, and because you didn’t camouflage the welds with grinding marks, you knock exactly where to drill.”
Gough noted the availability of an online I-CAR course in the use of induction heating in collision repair shops as another sign of the quick acceptance of the technology by the industry.
His company’s success has not surprisingly spawned competitor products offered by a far-larger organization, but like any good entrepreneur, Gough can quickly tout the benefits that he believes give his induction heating tools an edge.
First, he said, his family-run company builds the tools here in the United States.
“I don’t have a corporate jet or stockholders,” he said, laughing.
Second, Gough contended that his company’s tools have more power with standard electrical current than some competitor tools that require a 220-volt outlet.
“We can heat aluminum, and that’s not something they claim,” he said. “Their unit just doesn’t have the power to heat aluminum.”
Induction Innovations offers a number of attachments for the tools, such as a “Fast-Off Pad” designed to spread the heat over a slightly larger area, or the “Glass Blaster,” designed with an ergonomic grip and in a way that puts the magnetic field closer to the pinch weld on wider glass moldings.
“The competition considers their attachments to be consumables,” Gough said. “We warranty our attachments. When a unit comes in for repairs, we usually have it on its way back the same day.”
Pricing for the tools starts at about $500 for the handheld unit up to about $2,200 for the cart-mounted model with all the attachments, Gough said. All the tools come with a training DVD, but he said it’s a process that can be learned quickly and improved with just a little experience.
“The bottom line is you’re not only saving money with this, you’re making money,” he said.
“You’re cutting down on your consumables. You’re saving time. You’re reusing parts. It’s a win-win all the way around.”
