Rolling Irle

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Rolling Irle GmbH
legal form GmbH
founding 1820
Seat Netphen , Germany
management Managing directors authorized to represent:
  • Petrico von Schweinichen
  • Klaus Hägele
Number of employees > 263
sales 47 million euros
Branch Roller manufacturer
Website www.walzenirle.com
Status: 2018

The rollers Irle GmbH is an in Netphen , North Rhine-Westphalia resident roller manufacturer , which was founded in the early 19th century. Today the company, which was the first to manufacture chilled cast iron rollers in Germany , is a wholly owned subsidiary of Irle-Deuz GmbH. Rolls in different designs (such as work rolls, backup rolls or edging rolls) and sheets as well as pistons for hydraulic presses are manufactured. In addition, rollers are overhauled or repaired.

history

In 1820 Hermann Irle and his eldest son Johannes Irle started roll casting in the Marienborner Hütte. After successful attempts, the company Hermann Irle GmbH was founded. Before that, they had made room stoves and everyday cast iron items. Their new method of producing chilled cast iron rolls continued to be used. The production of room stoves flourished. Jacob and Carl Irle, the grandchildren of the late Hermann Irle, bought an abandoned silver and lead smelter in Deuz on January 24, 1848. There, the furnaces cast in Marienborn were to be turned, polished or ground. This new location offered itself due to the sufficient water gradient the victory and the availability of inexpensive charcoal . The company separated from the Silberhütte again, it was sold to Adolph Diesterweg and Johann Philipp Engels towards the end of 1858 .

Iron foundry

On July 14, 1848, the Irle brothers received the concession to convert the smelter into an iron foundry. The original plan was to continue casting the furnaces in Kaan-Marienborn and to bring the castings to Deuz for finishing. But the transports were too costly, so that in 1851 the foundry was relocated to Deuz. In 1854 the old buildings were demolished and a foundry with two cupolas was built . Jacob and Carl Irle founded a new company, which they named "Hermann Irle" in memory of their grandfather. The company was further expanded and equipped with modern machines, among other things, a steam engine with 75 HP was installed in 1875 because the water of the Sieg was no longer sufficient to generate energy. Carl Irle died in 1876 and in the following year Jacob Irle's son Rudolf and in 1888 Albert Irle, a son of Carl, joined the company after completing the technical school in Wuppertal .

Oven production has been declining for years, so the company switched to roll production. The last furnace was cast in 1891. Chilled cast iron had become more and more popular in the iron making industry. The dimensions and uses changed, so that larger machines and higher furnace capacities were required. A flame furnace with an operating weight of 13 t was built between 1892 and 1893 , which was changed ten years later to a capacity of 18 t. The finished rollers were transported with ox wagons, which limited their size and weight. The owners bought a disused mill at the end of the village of Deuz and built a power station there by installing a turbine so that the oil and carbide gas lighting in the factory halls could be switched to electric arc lamps. From 1906 the company also supplied the community of Deuz with the power station, which was one of the first communities in the Siegerland to have street lighting.

In the years 1906/1907 the factory was redesigned and expanded. It was built a new building in which the Comptoir was housed. The former casting master Klein lived on the second floor. In the turning shop there were 22 lathes, two milling machines and one grinding machine. In 1908 the company was converted into a GmbH, which Philipp Fischer, a son-in-law of Rudolf Irle, joined a year later and took over commercial management.

With the Kleinbahn Weidenau – Deuz , the plant was connected to rail traffic. In 1911 the company converted the old grinding mill into a further foundry with subsequent processing. This is how the Deuz hard cast iron works (Plant II) came into being. At the original plant there was no space for an expansion of the facility, so one area at the end of the village was chosen. Willibald Raym, a son-in-law of Rudolf Irle, built a new foundry for small chilled cast iron and wear parts that were machined on eight roller lathes and a milling machine. Reduction rollers, small rollers and hard cast parts were manufactured there, which took up a lot of space in the molding shop and had to be subjected to special treatment. The old mill was demolished in 1915.

Weimar Republic period

After the First World War, sales in both plants fell sharply as many customers replaced chilled cast iron rolls with steel rolls. Therefore straightening rolls, inking and milling rolls were included in the program and for the first time chilled cast iron rolls with retracted steel axles were manufactured. Among other things, large chilled cast iron rollers were produced for the paper industry, which were shrunk onto axles up to five meters in full load-bearing capacity. Raym's attempts with steel rollers were initially unsuccessful. In 1920 he applied for a patent for an invention for the production of centrifugal composite casting, according to which the company continued to produce rollers.

When the previous managing directors Rudolf (1922) and Otto Irle (1925) died, only Albert Irle was left, who had been managing director for 60 years. The poor order situation at the beginning of the 1920s could not be compensated for by adding new products. Many employees became day laborers or were laid off. The chilled cast iron works had to be leased at times. In 1927, roll production was resumed in the chilled cast iron works. In the subsequent global economic crisis , orders fell sharply and the workforce had to be reduced again. In the 1930s, demand rose again. The processing workshop in Plant 1 was expanded, partially rebuilt and inaugurated in 1938. Alterations also took place in Plant II. Fritz Bohn and Günther von Gumpert had been managing directors of the company since 1938. Von Gumpert had been running the business together with his father-in-law Albert Irle since 1926.

post war period

Due to the war, the two plants were shut down in 1944 and were inactive until the military government issued the major permit in 1946. The considerable damage caused by dismantling could only be repaired in 1951 by purchasing new grinding machines . With the deaths of Albert Irle (1948) and Günther von Gumpert (1949), Fritz Bohn became sole managing director until 1956. The furnace capacity was expanded. In 1951 Irle began to cast nodular cast iron rolls and suffered a serious setback in 1952 when the foundry of Plant II burned down completely. Part of the production was taken over from Plant 1 in shift work.

In 1954 the first electric furnace for the production of chill cast rollers was set up, which was inaugurated by the then Federal Minister of Economics, Ludwig Erhard . This was followed by the merger of the two foundries in Plant II by 1956, with the installation of additional electric furnaces and the enlargement of the casting area. The relocation of the machining workshops meant that Plant 1 had to be completely rebuilt, which was initially completed in 1962. In 1966 a grinding shop was added.

After Fritz Bohn, Erich von Gumpert, Wolfgang Jacobs and Hartmut Mildner became managing directors. After Deuz was incorporated into the large community of Netphen in 1969, the company was named Irle Deuz GmbH. The Deuzer plant was given the company name Walzen Irle Deuz GmbH. On the site of Plant 2, new halls were built and new casting plants and annealing furnaces were installed. A large drum extractor was added in 2008. In 2017, the largest piston in the company's history to date was manufactured.

Industrial railway Walzen-Irle Deuz

Since the dismantling of the Dreis-Tiefenbach-Deuz -wertebach small railway line on May 29, 2004, island operations have been carried out in Deuz at the Irle roller mill . When it was shut down, the V33 locomotive of the Siegen Kreisbahn remained in the rolling mill. It took over the regular shuttle service between the two Deuzer plants. Irle bought 200 meters of the station track including the siding in Deuz in order to get an opportunity to move it. In 2006 a V60 1175 was refurbished by OnRail , acquired by Irle and exchanged for the V33 on October 20th. Eight freight wagons are available for works traffic to transport the roll blanks from the foundry (Plant II, track length 320 meters) for processing to Plant I (track length 500 meters). On the way back, chips are transported to the foundry and finished goods are delivered to the shipping track.

literature

  • A retrospective of the 150 year history of a family business in pictures; 1820-1970 . Self-published, Deuz 1970, OCLC 258572135 .
  • Anic Roßbach: Walzen Irle: 175 years; a chronicle 1820–1995 . Vorländer, Siegen 1995, OCLC 553775587 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Walzen Irle foundries from Netphen. wirdzu-wem.de, 2018, accessed on May 24, 2020 .
  2. ↑ The Deuzer Mahlmühle and creation of Werk II. Irle-group.com, accessed on May 24, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Steffen Schwab: The largest drum centrifuge in the world. In: Westfälische Rundschau . January 13, 2008, accessed May 24, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Walzen Irle GmbH: Largest piston manufactured in the company's history. Energie-Umwelt-News, December 6, 2017, accessed on May 24, 2020 .
  5. ↑ Rolf Löttgers: isolated operation: without contact with the DB network; Rolling mill Irle . In: Lok Magazin . tape 48 , no. 335 , August 2009, ISSN  0458-1822 , OCLC 907902499 , p. 98-101 .

Coordinates: 50 ° 53 ′ 5.5 ″  N , 8 ° 8 ′ 53.5 ″  E