Werner Ladder Company extrusion temper case

Used to illustrate T1 temper — extrusion heat itself serves as the solutionizing treatment; the ladder rail ages naturally as it cools in the plant. A teaching scenario rather than a documented failure case.

So if I'm Werner Ladder Company, and I'm extruding the rails for an aluminum ladder that you go buy at Home Depot or Lowe's, I'll extrude it and I'll set up my extrusion press such that the heat from extrusion will heat up that thing. It's going to be hot when it comes out from just the work, and it will be solution-treated. It will be heated up so that all the alloying element goes into solution, and then as it cools down sitting there in the plant, it will naturally age to the precipitation condition. So all they have to do is extrude it. The extrusion heat does the solutionizing heat treatment, and it naturally ages as it sits there if you get the right type of alloy composition.