PTR-Precision Technologies Inc specializes in the manufacture of Electron Beam Welding (EBW) Systems and providing Contract EB Welding services. The companies roots stretch back to the beginning of electron beam welding and drilling. The technology at the heart of PTR's EB welding systems was originally developed in the 1950's by Dr. h. c. Karl-Heinz Steigerwald while he was working for Zeiss in Germany. United Aircraft (now United Technologies Corporation) purchased this technology and began producing electron beam welders in their Hamilton Standard facility in Windsor Locks, CT USA. Hamilton Standard took the German design and worked to make it a robust, user friendly system. These electron beam welding systems were quickly adopted by industry and many of these vintage Hamilton Standard machines manufactured in the 1960's and 1970's are still in use today.
The Hamilton Standard electron beam welder business was sold Leybold-Heraeus Vacuum Systems in 1976 and the US facility was moved to its current location in Enfield, CT. Leybold then sold the electron beam welder business in 1989 and the business became PTR-Precision Technologies. In 2004 the PTR and Steigerwald electron beam welding businesses were combined to form Global Beam Technologies Group (GBT). The combined resources of the new group allowed a renaissance of technical development that has led to the advanced features and systems designs available from PTR today.