Zweihorn
| Zweihorn ® | |
|---|---|
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| Owner / user | Akzo Nobel Wood Coatings GmbH |
| Introductory year | 1912 |
| Products | Stains, lacquers, oils, waxes, glazes, glues, adhesives |
| Website | www.zweihorn.com |
Zweihorn is a brand for products for wood surface finishing in the handicraft for the interior. The brand belongs to the AkzoNobel Group, a global paint and varnish manufacturer. The product range extends from lacquers , stains and glazes to oils and waxes , glues and special products for joiners and joiners .
The AkzoNobel Group, to which Zweihorn belongs, is based in Hilden .
history
In 1912 the Horn brothers founded the "Horn & Horn" company in Cologne, Ehrenfeld, which initially traded in oils and fats. In the 1920s, the company contacted a group of chemists whose knowledge - especially in the field of wood stains - they made use of in order to later start manufacturing stains, mattings and polishes .
At the beginning of the 1930s, the Horn brothers sold the company to the Cologne manufacturer Eugen Wolff, owner of Sidol-Werke , who converted the company into a GmbH, which was first listed in the Cologne commercial register on May 26, 1931. During this phase, the new company name "Zweihorn" was used parallel to the old one. In 1940 the name "Horn" was deleted from the company name; From then on this is "Zweihorn Werk GmbH". In the last years of the war, the plant was completely destroyed by bombs. In the Braunsfeld district , near the Sidol works, the new headquarters of Zweihorn Werk GmbH was found some time later. In 1951, the business capital was converted from 100,000 Reichsmarks to DM (the same amount).
In 1960 the Zweihorn factory, which had 70 employees at the time, was taken over by Hermann Wiederhold paint factories in Hilden . Wiederhold, an old family company, employed around 2,000 people in its branches in 1960. On August 16 of the same year, the Zweihorn factory was entered in the Hilden commercial register. The complete product range for the industrial sector (furniture, packaging, automotive and printing industries) as well as for the trade (joiners / joiners, painters, car painters) is combined at just one location and later expanded to include the do-it-yourself sector.
In the course of efforts in the 1970s to be able to use international know-how, contacts between Wiederhold and Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) Ltd. , which was founded in 1926, in addition to almost all other areas of chemistry, was also successful in the paints and coatings industry. To round off its product portfolio, ICI acquired the Wiederhold-Lackfabriken in 1976 and with it the Zweihorn factory. From 1981 the company was called "ICI Lacke Farben GmbH". Accordingly, Zweihorn also operates as Zweihorn -vertrieb of ICI Lacke Farben GmbH .
In 2005, the Dutch paint and varnish group AkzoNobel bought the Zweihorn brand in order to achieve market leadership in the craft of professional paints. This year the Zweihorn brand will be 100 years old.
Development of the logo
The company logo has been changed a total of seven times since 1912. Based on a round figurative mark showing two postal horns with the two initials (the letter "H") of the founding fathers, the initials of the Horn & Horn brothers were removed from the figurative mark in 1980 in the course of the company takeovers by Wiederhold and again by ICI. The logo was reduced to the two post horns in white on a red background. Based on this, it was given the Zweihorn logo in 1994. For four years the ICI logo was integrated into the figurative mark, which is now marked by a red triangle in combination with the Zweihorn lettering. In 2001 the logo was reduced to a white Zweihorn lettering with the ICI logo on a dark blue background. Shortly before the Dutch company AkzoNobel took over the brand, the logo was given its current design: a detached, modernized two-horn lettering in dark blue, with a rounded icon in front , which in an abstract form is reminiscent of the two postal horns from the time it was founded.
Products
In 1984 the first colored lacquer mixing system Wigranit was produced, from 1985 the first stain that could also be sprayed (Spritz- & Brush stain S9900) and from a formaldehyde-free clear lacquer . In 1988 a mixing machine for the colored paint mixing system came out.
In 1991 the company manufactured a spectrophotometer for determining color. From 1993 a water-based paint mixing system (SupercrylColor SCC) was produced. In 1995, the first Isolierfüller on solvent-based and 1999, the first Isolierfüller water-based (Supercryl Isolierfüller IF). In 2005 a magnetic filler came on the market, in 2008 the ultra-fast drying 3-component high-gloss lacquer system (Duritan). In 2010 a solvent paint with 20% water content (Futuran) was produced. In 2011 the first residue filler, mixable with paint residue 1: 1, came onto the market as well as the water-based high-gloss clearcoat (Duocryl water high-gloss clearcoat DC-HG).
literature
- ICI Lacke und Farben GmbH (publisher): 125 years of ICI Lacke Farben Hilden - a company portrait. Hilden 1992.