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 In Memoriam: Franz Clouth (1838 - 1910)
    Venture       Business   
 Freedom (of decision  and action)    Sucess  

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Wilhelm Clouth Franz Clouth Firms Clouth Factory Land & Sea Aeronautic Balloons Products Caoutchouc Genealogy English.htm Old Catholic Progeny Rheinbreitbach.htm Shows Perspektives

 

Old Clouth firm  Logo

"CLOUTH"

Altreifen

 

Balloon Gondola

Cöln Beginning of 20 Century.

Franz Clouth

Bronze F. Clouth Bust

Clouth Book Nr.1

Diving Helmet Clouth

Clouth-Wappen 1923

Clouth Balloon XI

Rechtsanwalt J.P. Clouth

Ehefrau Audrey Clouth

Bryan, Oliver, Phillip

Clouth

Max Clouth

Clouth Balloon Sirius

 Kautschuk Golfball

Clouth Factory Front

Younger Franz Clouth

Eugen Clouth

Clouth Factory

Air Ship Advert

Clouth Money

Old Clouth Crest

Car tyres

Old Car

OLd Daimler

Excavator with conveyor belt

Clouth VIII Balloon

Wilhelm Clouth

Katharina Clouth

Caoutchouc Golfball

Draft of Clouth Memorial

Old Catholic Church Köln

Cable Tower

Clouth IX

Ticket for Clouth IX Drive

Clouth IX

Clouth Buch 2.Edition

old Franz Clouth

Balloon Gondola

Butzweilerhof Airport

Caoutchouc-Tree

Caoutchouc Sheets

Caoutchouc-Copy Mashine

Water-Regulator

old Land & See Logo

Land & See New logo

Franz Clouth

Richard Clouth

Industrieverein Altlogo

Conveyor Belt Hall

Gate 2 to Clouth Works

Atlantic Cable

von Podbielski Cable Layer

Sound Silencer "Clouth Ei"(Egg)

Printery Wilhelm Clouth

 

 

 

From natural product to industrial product

 

When company founder Franz Clouth founded one of the first rubber manufactures in Germany mor than a century ago, the raw material rubber required for this purpose had to be imported exclusively from South America, because only there grew rubber trees from whose thickly liquid natural rubber was extracted.

part of Conveyor belt with inner steel cables for stability

Already Columbus saw in South America natives play with jumping balls, which were made from hardened plant juice. This fascinated the Spaniards brought rubber to Europe. It was not until much later that the British discovered other possibilities for the use of this natural substance. It was noticed that rubbing can be used to remove pencil marks from paper, which gave the material the English name 'rubber' (rubbing). In 1823, Charles Macintosh reported the first patent for a product using rubber. He applied a thin layer of rubber between two layers of textile fibers and thus became the inventor of the raincoat (still called 'mack' in England).

Rubber had the unpleasant property of being soft and sticky at high temperatures, but being leathery and hard in the cold. The American Charles Goodyear found out in 1839 how to take these properties to the rubber. Inadvertently, a mixture of rubber and sulfur fell coincidently on a hot plate. He scraped it off immediately, realizing to his astonishment that the mixture, though still warm, felt dry and not soft and sticky. The material also remained elastic in the cold.

 This discovery marked the birthdays of the rubber industry, which experienced a rapid ascent with increasing industrialization. The process of adding sulfur to the rubber is known as vulcanization (according to the Roman fire-god Vulcan). With the end of the 19th century plant seeds were smuggled to Europe.

In Indonesia and parts of Asia large rubber plantations by European colonial powers were established. However, as early as the beginning of this century (1909), the first synthetic rubbers were produced as an invention from Bayer Leverkusen/Germany, which were in competition of great importance to the natural raw material.

Part of the Clouth site has not been used for production since 2007 until 2015, but rented for commercial purposes. In 2015, the entire company area was cleared for a new housing construction project.

The first known company view from 1873 - below the stylized representation of the founder Franz Clouth on horseback. In fact, at that time he rode from his apartment in the Kölner Sternengasse every morning to the then still unpaved Hohestraße to his factory in the then community of Nippes

 

140 Years Clouth Works in Köln Nippes

                                  

 

Firm site ca 1873 as Colorit

Firm Site ca 1873 as B/W Print

Firm Site app.1900

Firm Site app. 1900

Firm  1945

Clouth & Land and See were also equipping the Wehrmacht (German army), therefore one of the main objects of Cologne to be bombed by allied forces

Clouth Works and Land & See Cable works in the 70th

start of complete teardown of factory in 2015

 

Watch live streaming video from clouth at livestream.com

Clouth Gummiwerke AG - Rubber products from Cologne Nippes until 2015

 

The old-established Cologne company was the largest employer in Cologne-Nippes, and its development was always closely linked to that of the district. It was found, when coming from the Innere Kanalstrasse, the Niehlerstraße went out of town. After a few hundred meters, they were standing in front of the gatehouse and the adjoining administrative buildings of the company, which in the meantime had partly been declared an industrial monument, but essentially had to make way for a new residential development in 2015.

Tradition was always given to this Cologne company already established in 1868 by the company founder Franz Clouth in the district of Nippes. If the first rubber products of the company were still suckers and hosiery, the emerging industry was supplied with rubber products such as roller covers, conveyor belts or belting after just a few years. As early as 1876, the company was advertising  in the New York Trade Newspaper and had already employed more than 70 workers. According to the highs and lows in the company's history, there were lately only about 640 employees left. The company area covered 160,000 m2, which corresponds approximately to the area of 32 football fields.

Applications of Clouth products

"Above the rooftops of ...." No, not Nice, but of the "Clouth Factory" in 2014

    Clouthe Cross                                   Clouth Book

Photos from Manfred Backhausen

 
 
Kautschuk/Rubber    
 
                                                                 Guttapercha                                                                        
 
 

 

                                                                                              

                                               

Franz Hubert Clouth book about rubber, Guttapercha etc., at that time the main information for the upcoming rubber industry

 

Cable & Sea Cable Production

 

 

Kabelleger Agamemnon 1852                         cable production 1850                                 Coiled cable in ship

                           

Laying sea cable                               laid sea Cables 1901                  sea cable cross section

Balloon Fabrics

 

Even here it all starts with the "wining tree and it's sap

 

and the people to make it usefull

Rubber fabrics were already known for longer for private use

 

For baloons and zeppelins and their skins, it was just a step aside from a Mackingtosh

 

to

 
rubbered cotton and silk material was used for that purpose, which one?

 

    

well, for diving puposes for baloons and zeppelins of course

1909 Zeppelins over Cologne, Clouth Airship on the right

 
Clouth gained knowledge about how to produce rubber fabrics by his support for the german army and the tents,
needed for the soldiers

New mashines were needed for that

      

         

Use of rubber for cars & bikes

 

 

 

 

 

        

Old tires                            Tire concept 2016                   inner old tire structure                   Old tire       

Bike tires/Exhibition

       

modern tires                                                                                      ref. Bicycle tires

Advertisement for bicycle tires and inner tubes (spelling mistake: "Schläuche" not Schluäche)

 

Production of tires for bikes, lorries, etc.

 

Old garage for car repairs

 

Entrepeneur Franz Hubert Clouth was more or less forced to get interested in new products of his time and their use in his factories which needed electricity and steam mashines, both coming from England again. Swan with the electric bulb and other atvantages of the new power; Lord Armstrong and Stevenson with their steam mashines also to do factory work.

 

Lots of experiments were made by handy firm owners themthelves at that time to find out how to use that new power supply system for their firms. The fight between Edison, America, and Swan, Scotland at that time obviously showed a lot of people, that again a new world was coming up, surprising also entrepeneurs.

 

Entrepeneur Franz Hubert Clouth was more or less forced to get interested in new products of his time and their use in his factories especially bakelt was similar to hardened rubber.So he was highly interested in the new synthetic material Bakelit, one of the first plastics made from pure synthetic components what ment: no purchases abroad, no transports from far far away. Just a chemical bottle could do it with more or less little effort. The new material again opened another new technical world for him. For entrepeneurs that ment: more money in sight!!,

                  

Telephone                                 Ignition Distributor                       Radio
 
because it was quickley obvious: "Everybody will need it!"

Press releases about teardown of Clouth factory 2015

   

Sorry, just in german language at the moment:    

The following press releases were published during the last year 2015 and early 2016.

      

For questions and comments please contact by info@rechtsanwalt-clouth.de
Stand: 05.09.17