Althammer (Saigerhütte Grünthal)

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The old hammer with a moat
Broad hammer and forge fire
View of the water wheel-driven camshaft as the drive for the tail hammers
Hammer frame with two deep hammers and one wide hammer (from left)

The Althammer is a historic hammer mill in the hut complex of the Saigerhütte Grünthal in Olbernhau in the Saxon Ore Mountains . The hammer is an important witness to the proto-industrial development in the Ore Mountains. Of the formerly numerous Saxon hammer mills, apart from the old hammer , only the Frohnau hammer , the Eisenhammer Dorfchemnitz , and the Freibergsdorf hammer mill remained functional.

history

Production facility

The Althammer dates back to the early days of Saigerhütte of 1537. In it was mainly Garkupfer hammered into sheets, as well as cooking utensils such as bowls, kettles and pans were manufactured.

During the tipper and wipper era , the Grünthal mint was established as a branch of the Dresden mint in 1621 . After the return to the imperial coinage system , Elector Johann Georg I had the coin closed in 1623. From 1752 to 1755 the capacity of the hammer mill was used again for minting coins . During this period, the mint minted copper coins for the Kingdom of Poland . From 1804 until the final closure of the minting operation in 1825, the entire copper coinage for Saxony took place here.

On June 3rd and 4th and then on June 22nd, 23rd and 28th, 1771, serious flood events hit the smelter site after the facilities had already been affected in 1723, 1748 and 1750. The rivers Flöha and Natzschung burst their banks after several days of rain and flooded the hammer mill as high as a man.

Production was finally stopped in 1914.

museum

After a heavy flood on 3rd / 4th In January 1932 the old hammer was in desolation. By 1935 the walls and roof had been repaired by FA Lange Metallwerke AG Aue , but the interior was not repaired. They wanted to hand over the object to the city of Olbernhau for the purpose of preservation as a technical monument, which however showed little interest in it. On September 24, 1935, the Hammerbund e. V. , who pursued the idea of ​​conservation. In addition, the entire complex between the Natzschung and the railway line was to become an “industrial museum”. The request was not implemented, however, and the Hammerbund also dissolved again in 1937.

In the period 1958–1961, the owner, VEB Blechwalzwerk Olbernhau , had the old hammer renovated into a technical museum. However, at the beginning of the 1960s, the management of VEB increasingly felt that entertainment and operations were an economic burden. Therefore, in 1964, the company withdrew completely from entertainment. The Marienberg District Council took over legal ownership.

After the political change, the city of Olbernhau acquired the historic territory south of Grünthaler Strasse in 1991 from the property of the sheet metal rolling mill that was closed in 1990. In addition, important buildings were acquired, including the old hammer. In the following period, the original condition of the fixtures was restored by March 15, 1993. A flood set the building on 12./13. August 2002 briefly under water, a board on the hammer frame documents the highest level (see picture). The damage to and in the building as well as the ditch system could be repaired immediately.

The old hammer is part of the "Saigerhütte Olbernhau Museum" and can be viewed regularly in demonstrations.

Equipment / technology

The 3 tail hammers are driven by a shaft that drives a medium-sized water wheel with a diameter of 2.7 meters and a width of 1.5 meters. A mechanism is used to pull the contactor in the channel from inside the building and water falls onto the 28 blades of the waterwheel and sets it in motion. The 11 meter long oak shaft has a diameter of 1 meter and weighs about 8 tons. The cam rings attached to the shaft each have 10 cams. The hammer parts are each 4 meters long. The two low hammers each measure 150 kilograms, the wide hammer 300 kilograms. Depending on the opening of the contactor, the hammering speed can be influenced. The second overshot waterwheel measures 2.5 meters in diameter and 1 meter in width and drives the wooden box blower via a wooden rod. The air flow reaches the forge fire via a pipe.

Originally there was a melting and warming fire on the side wall to the moat, today's small annex on the opposite side was built later.

Web links

Commons : Althammer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Hanns-Heinz Kasper : From the Saigerhütte to the Kupferhammer Grünthal 1537–1873 . From the 450-year history of a metallurgical company in Olbernhau-Grünthal . Ed .: Saigerhüttenverein Olbernhau-Grünthal e. V. Druckerei Olbernhau, Olbernhau-Grünthal 1994, p. 50 .
  2. ↑ a b c Hanns-Heinz Kasper: Saigerhütte Olbernhau / Grünthal and the technical museum Kupferhammer . In: Sächsische Landesstelle für Museumwesen (Hrsg.): Saxon museums - small series . tape 9 . Chemnitz 2004, p. 21-24 .
  3. ↑ Hanns-Heinz Kasper : From the Saigerhütte to the Kupferhammer Grünthal 1537–1873 . .. Ed .: Saigerhüttenverein Olbernhau-Grünthal e. V. S. 72 .
  4. ^ Hanns-Heinz Kasper: From the Royal Saxon Copper Hammer to FA Lange Metallwerke AG 1873-1945 . In: Saigerhüttenverein Olbernhau-Grünthal e. V. (Ed.): History of metallurgy in the city of Olbernhau . tape II . Saxon Printing and Publishing House, Dresden 1997, ISBN 3-929048-26-4 , p. 63 .
  5. ^ Hanns-Heinz Kasper: From the Royal Saxon Copper Hammer to FA Lange Metallwerke AG 1873-1945 . .. Ed .: Saigerhüttenverein Olbernhau-Grünthal e. V. S. 48 .
  6. ^ Hanns-Heinz Kasper , Hans-Hendrik Kasper: The sheet rolling mill Olbernhau 1945-1990 . (= History of Metallurgy in the City of Olbernhau Volume III. ). Ed .: Saigerhüttenverein Olbernhau-Grünthal eV 2010, ISBN 978-3-937386-22-5 , p. 47 .
  7. ^ Lothar Suhling: The technical monument ensemble "Saigerhütte Olbernhau-Grünthal". Preservation and reconstruction problems of a unique document of the Saxon metalworking industry from the 16th century . In: Stefan Brüggerhoff (Ed.): Mining and industrial history, documentation and research. Industrial archeology and museum. Festschrift for Rainer Slotta for his 60th birthday . Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh GmbH & Co. KG, Paderborn 2006, ISBN 3-506-71365-5 , p. 379 ( digitized version ).
  8. ↑ See Werner Fischer, Stadtverwaltung Olbernhau (ed.): 100 years of the city of Olbernhau. 1902-2002. 1st edition November 2001, Druckerei Olbernhau, pp. 89–94.
  9. ^ Hanns-Heinz Kasper: Saigerhütte Olbernhau / Grünthal and the technical museum Kupferhammer . In: Sächsische Landesstelle für Museumwesen (Hrsg.): Saxon museums - small series . tape 9 . Chemnitz 2004, p. 31 .
  10. ↑ Internet presence "Museum Saigerhütte Olbernhau" , accessed on March 27, 2015.

Coordinates: 50 ° 39 ′ 0.4 ″  N , 13 ° 22 ′ 12.1 ″  E