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Frölich & Klüpfel – Quality and tradition for over 130 years
The early years (1880-1945)
Frölich & Klüpfel’s history spans back to the late 19th century: Around 1880, the founder Julius Frölich developed a pneumatic stone drill. It was successfully used to dig stone tunnels for mining and thus laid the foundation stone for the company which was founded on January 1, 1885 in Eisleben in Silesia.
Only a few months later, a branch office was established in Barmen and in April 1891, the headquarters were relocated to the southern Ruhr area. The range of products was expanded to include machines and equipment with pneumatic drives to make stone working and shaft sinking in the mining industry easier.
In 1908, the first large shaft was sunk using Frölich & Klüpfel technology: the Wilhelmine Shaft in Zabroze (later Hindenburg/Upper Schlesia). In 1912, the first freeze shaft order was placed for the Oehringen mine near Gleiwitz. Until the start of World War I, the company expanded to Austria, Hungary and the Balkans and established branch offices in Vienna and Budapest. Additional facilities were built in Aachen, on the Lower Rhine, and in Holland and England.
Frölich & Klüpfel took over the production company, Stephan, Frölich & Klüpfel in Buer in 1925. Later, shaft loading equipment, patented pipelines, slide engines and troughs as well as the first pneumatic tools were manufactured at Plant 3. In 1929, the company acquired another factory in Wuppertal-Barmen to meet the increasing demand for high-quality pneumatic tools.
Post-war and the “Economic Miracle” (1945-1973)
At the end of World Ware II, Frölich & Klüpfel lost its production site in Upper Schlesia and its subsidiaries in Vienna and Budapest. The remaining production and service facilities resumed their work under the harshest conditions. Initial orders came from, among other places, the Saar region and, as a result, the shaft and mining department grew to more than 1,000 employees.
In 1952/53, mining technology from Frölich & Klüpfel started being used for shaft expansion at the Anna mine belonging to the Eschweiler Bergwerks-Verein (EBV (Mining Association) in the Aachen region. The freezing procedure was used and, for the first time, shaft walls with bitumen joins and subsequent injection work to prevent water penetration. The company was awarded several large orders both at home and abroad and constructed the first large conveyor system in 1954.
In the years that followed, the administrative building at the Wuppertal-Barmen site was remodeled and a site in Gelsenkirchen-Buer was purchased. In 1962, the Wuppertal plant was expanded and in May 1967, the drilling operation of the former Verbund der Erzbergbau Siegerland GmbH was taken over. The shaft and mining department was converted into the shaft, rock and underground construction department which handles the business side of all types of rock and underground construction projects.
In 1970, the safety group was taken over from Erzbergbau Siegerland GmbH which performed safety and renovation work in decommissioned shafts, mine structures and air raid shelters. The safety group remained in Siegerland after the Siegerland drilling operations were relocated from Walmenroth to Essen in 1971.
The underground construction department took over the technical management of one of the largest mining projects in the Federal Republic of Germany on March 30, 1972: full-cut tunneling with a drilling head with a 6 meter diameter at the Rhineland amalgamated mine. The drilling department was also heavily involved in the construction of the new subways in Frankfurt am Main and Essen and in the construction of the city tram system in Mülheim/Ruhr with anchor bores for securing the building.
In January 1973, the underground construction department was relocated from Essen to Gelsenkirchen-Buer in order to utilize existing synergies with the production at Plant 3. In the same year, the “pneumatic market” in Wuppertal was founded as a trade department to be able to offer customers a full range of pneumatic tools from one source.
Frölich & Klüpfel today
Frölich & Klüpfel reacted to the crisis in the coal mining sector at the beginning of the 1970s by rapidly diversifying the products. The individual company departments were converted to legally autonomous units which were combined in the F+K group of companies which includes the still existing Frölich und Klüpfel Drucklufttechnik GmbH & Co. KG with head offices in Wuppertal.
Today, the range of products includes a wide selection of a variety of pneumatic hammers and tools such as shakers, grinders and impact screwdrivers. These not only made the company the market leader in the field of pneumatic hammers for stonemasons and sculptors, but also created the basis for additional product developments, for instance, in cooperation with Mercedes Benz: Together, the engineers from both companies developed a solution for economically decoring cast parts made of a variety of materials such as light metal or gray cast iron.
The first reference product F+K constructed for Mercedes Benz in Mettingen was a fully-automatic decoring system for aluminum cylinder heads. Today, the company’s satisfied customers include major European foundries, as well as companies in China, Japan, Brazil and South Africa and, in addition to its many years of tradition, the company impresses with its innovative power and is still one of the most important manufacturers worldwide.