Wallpapering Machines From Wolfsburg

There are only a few companies that are synonymous with a product. Tempo, representative of handkerchiefs, is one such case. The Jeep brand is a kind of vehicle of its own. There is a similar example in the area of painters. We were there .

Author: Andreas Ehrfeld | Photos: Franziska Hohenhövel

Of course, this means the family company Tapo-fix from Wolfsburg. Lower Saxony has been making everyday life easier for painters with their products since the mid-1960s.

Production continues at the Wolfsburg site. "Each device is handcrafted, but modern CNC and laser cutting techniques are also used," explains Moritz Hohenhövel, managing director together with his father Hartwig.

How the wallpapering machines work

The devices have been continuously improved over the past decades. The structure of the machines has remained largely the same: They consist of a tub for the paste and a device in which the wallpaper roll can be hung. There is also a paste roller and a guide and deflection roller. A cutting device enables the wallpaper to be cut to the desired length. In addition, there is the meter counter, which is essential for working on the company's own one-meter wallpapering table.

Spare parts supply for wallpapering machines

Should a part break down, it does not mean the end of the machines that often do their job on construction sites for decades: "All spare parts also fit machines that are up to 20 years old =" ", promises Moritz Hohenhövel. Otherwise you are close to the market. The two-meter wallpapering table "GT 80 F" with a width of 82 centimeters, for example, was developed at the suggestion of several painters. It was worth it, because the table with the larger support surface is now selling very well. "We are moving in a small gap in the market, but we are filling it very well," says the trained banker and business economist Moritz Hohenhövel. For this reason, the Wolfsburg portfolio mainly includes wallpapering machines, dispensers and accessories,an expansion of the delivery program is currently not planned.

history

The company was founded by Paul Hohenhövel, the grandfather or father of today's shareholders Moritz and Hartwig. First, production was carried out in a garage in Wolfsburg's city center: "In the 1960s, we often drove long distances with a 1600 VW Variant in order to present the devices directly to the painters on the construction sites," recalls Hartwig to the beginnings of his father Paul. The painters were immediately convinced of the devices, says Hartwig Hohenhövel.

The garage quickly became too narrow as a production site, so that a dance hall and surrounding former cattle stalls in Flechtorf, Lower Saxony, served as the location. The growth was probably also a particular relief for the artisans at that time: “In the past, lines and dots in the wallpaper colors were printed on the edges of the wallpaper, the so-called self-edging. The painter had to cut it off the wallpaper before the wallpaper was glued. Until around 1950, this edge strip was cut by hand with scissors. Then there was the so-called hair knife, with which this edge was chipped off along a metal rail.”And then Tapo-fix came with a cutting device that cut off the self-edge as soon as it was pulled through the wallpapering machine. In the meantime they belong

Self edging is a thing of the past, but wallpapering machines are still needed. This is also shown by the annual sales of the Wolfsburg family business: the manufacturer sells several thousand devices annually through the wholesale trade. The location has been the Vorsfelde district of Wolfsburg since 1976, where it was possible to grow step by step. The company now has a total of 25 employees in production, sales and shipping.

With Moritz joining the management team, the company will remain in family hands for the next 30 years. Hohenhövel laughs that celebrating the company's 100th anniversary is his big goal.

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Contact

Tapo-fix GmbH & Co. KG

Meinstrasse 114

D-38448 Wolfsburg

Tel.: 05363 9771-10

Fax: 05363 9771-50

www.tapofix.de