RISE FROM REVOLUTION
In 1910, the Russian tsar placed an order for three fibre-cement plants with the Danish company FLSmidth & Co. Unfortunately for the tsar, the 1914 revolution had broken out by the time his plants were finally ready to ship.
One of these packaged plants was almost forgotten by time and spent the next 13 years in storage, until FLSmidth & Co. dug it out and founded its own fibre-cement subsidiary, Dansk Eternit-Fabrik - now Cembrit - in the city of Aalborg.
CONQUERING EUROPE
The plant that never made it to the tsar’s Russia became the Aalborg home of Dansk Eternit-Fabrik in 1927. This plant turned out the thousands upon thousands and millions upon millions of sheets that would slowly but surely roof Denmark with fibre cement.
The company perfected its fibre-cement craft as it grew over the next 50 years and really started to increase its export activities in the late 1970s. Showing remarkable commitment to the company’s European conquest, three decades of acquisitions followed. And among these acquisitions were a number of companies with even more fibre-cement experience than Dansk Eternit-Fabrik.
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HATSCHEK PLANT |
| The tsar’s forgotten plant contained the building blocks for a basic Hatschek plant. The Hatshcek process is named after Austrian inventor Ludwig Hatschek and entails mixing 90% cement with 10% fibres, adding water and running the pulp through a machine made for producing cardboard. |
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THE 'NAME' CEMBRIT |
| The name ‘Cembrit’ derives from the Cimbri – a nomadic tribe from Northern Denmark that conquered large parts of Europe and threatened the Roman Empire around 100 BC. It was first used in 1941 as the name of an export brand during Dansk Eternit-Fabrik’s European conquest. |
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THE FIBRE-CEMENT HERITAGE |
| Fibre cement is a specialist material. And while Cembrit’s 1927 Hatschek plant was very primitive by modern standards and required much manual labour, the basic principles of fibre-cement production remain the same more than 80 years later. So we have had a lot of time to hone our specialist craft - and we are ready to use all that knowledge and experience for your benefit today. |