On the occasion of our new brochure for air entrainment meters, Mr. Hans-Heinrich Reuter, Managing Director of TESTING Bluhm & Feuerherdt GmbH, asked me to say a few personal words about the first air entrainment meter and thus about the history of the company. In 1979, Benno Bluhm and I began our journey into entrepreneurship by founding the company TESTING Bluhm & Feuerherdt GmbH. Mr Bluhm had been head of design with the company TONINDUSTRIE (today TONI TECHNIK). I myself joined TONI as a young engineer, and then progressed through various management positions. When Mr Bluhm retired, he had the great idea that he could finally enjoy his hobby, sailing. That was a misconception on his part. He only had a two-master and usually lacked a first officer to steer the big boat.
In the meantime, I had left the company TONINDUSTRIE and was looking for an exciting new project. After many discussions, Mr. Bluhm and I decided to establish our own company and to produce the air entrainment meter as our own first device. Mr. Bluhm began the construction work: we ordered the cast iron, had the parts machined, anodised, painted and began the assembly in Mr. Bluhm’s basement. Eventually, two samples were ready. Mr Bluhm made an appointment with the leading test equipment supplier at the time, the Weissgerber company, in Frankfurt/Main. Together we drove off with the prototypes and demonstrated the devices there. We subsequently received an order for the first twenty devices. This was the birth of the modern air entrainment meter with integrated pressure gauge. After a while, the neighbours in Mr. Bluhm’s apartment building became too curious and we had to rent a small workshop, especially as we needed additional space for our castings.
By chance we heard that the company TONINDUSTRIE became insolvent due to the cancellation of a large export order to Saudi Arabia. Since TONI was a well-known manufacturer of air entrainment meters, Mr. Bluhm and I went to TONI to see if we could acquire the TONI air entrainment meters. There we met father and son of the company Roell + Korthaus (today Zwick Roell), who also wanted to take over the remains of TONI. However, they were mainly interested in the machine production, not the air entrainment meters. We bought up all the inventory of air entrainment meters and overnight had two different types of air entrainment meters in the portfolio: our new one with integrated manometer and the classic Toni devices with screwed-on manometer. Both from the pen and mind of my partner Benno Bluhm.
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