A Journey through the history of abrasives!

In April and May, 2024, we will guide you through the history of abrasives by highlighting various milestones. This is the history that VSM has influenced and helped to shape.

The first records of the use of sandpaper in England date back to the 18th century. Its use as a tool began as industrialisation progressed in Europe and America. The first industrially produced abrasives were sandpaper, glass paper and flint paper. These all use paper as a backing. The abrasive material, i.e. sand, glass or flint, is fixed to the paper backing with adhesive. The performance of these abrasive grains was still quite low. The abrasive papers were primarily used for wood and other soft materials.
In Germany in 1863, the first mention was made of a company that was manufacturing abrasives. Shortly afterwards, in May 1864, the company that now bears the name VSM was founded in Hanover. At this time, the founders Siegmund Oppenheim and Siegmund Seeligmann still had no idea what kind of a success story they were embarking on with their new company.

Industrialisation required the machining of increasingly hard materials, such as metal. Metal processing plants cannot work efficiently with abrasives such as glass paper and flint. A new material for the production of abrasives was needed.  
At the end of the 19th century, a solution was found that was also suitable for the industrial mass market. The emery mined on the Greek island of Naxos has high hardness and excellent abrasion resistance. Emery is therefore very suitable for metalworking.  
Although the grinding properties of emery have been known since ancient times, the raw material was previously very difficult to crush due to its hardness. Thanks to the steam engine, however, this was now no longer a challenge. Even today, terms such as “emery paper” and the activity of “emerising” are still mentioned, even though emery no longer plays a role in modern abrasives.

In 1880, the design of our first in-house grinding machine marked a new milestone. Until this point, the use of grinding discs tended to be uneconomic. Competition from the traditional file was very strong. Thanks to the new grinding machine, the grinding performance of discs increased significantly and lead to a significant reduction in labour costs.  
This increase in efficiency quickly generated great interest in the new type of emery grinding wheels. The product range grew rapidly: The “Vulkan” disc for dry grinding applications, the “Neptun” for wet grinding, the “Atlas” for dry and wet applications, and later a performance-enhanced variant called “Helios” were introduced. Thanks to its excellent stock removal capability, the “Helios” was particularly appreciated in foundries.  
This part of the story also explains our company name “VSM”, Vereinigte Schmirgel- und Maschinen-Fabriken (United Emery and Machine Factories). The emery used as an abrasive material for our products and the corresponding machines were made by VSM.  

Backing the right horse: In 1932, we were already aware of the importance of the backing material for high-quality flexible abrasives and invested in our first cloth finishing plant. This allowed us to produce cloths specifically for use as backings for flexible abrasives. At this time, these were referred to in Germany as Schleifleinen (abrasive linens). Today, backings made of cotton or polyester fabric are commonly used for high-quality abrasives.
Thanks to our own cloth finishing plant, we can still significantly influence the performance of our abrasives today. The production of our own backing materials is a crucial part of our vertically integrated production.
Since 1930, we have focused entirely on abrasives on flexible backings, and we continue to do so today. With 94 years of experience, we are specialists in this field and have a unique understanding of abrasives.

The flying abrasive grain: Until the early 1960s, gravity dispersion was used in abrasive production. The abrasive grit was dropped onto the backing from above. The abrasive grain then lay wildly distributed on the backing.
Abrasives only become really effective and powerful, however, if the abrasive grains are placed upright. Then the sharp tip of each grain protrudes upwards.  
With the introduction of electrostatic coating in 1962, our abrasives became even more powerful. In this process, the abrasive grains are electrostatically charged so that they fly from bottom to top, against the force of gravity, onto the base bond of the backing.  
The higher the proportion of vertical abrasive grains, the higher the stock removal rate of the abrasive. Today, electrostatic coating is a standard procedure in the production of abrasives. At VSM, we have been letting abrasive grains fly for more than 60 years

They are used in many kitchens and are a real eye-catcher: Kitchen furniture with stainless steel fronts. A specific scratch pattern is what lends these stainless steel fronts their high-quality look. Since 1978, long-term abrasives called VSM COMPACTGRAIN have been used for this purpose.
With the market launch of VSM COMPACTGRAIN, we changed metalworking yet again. VSM COMPACTGRAIN long-term abrasives are made up of a granulate that contains numerous abrasive grains. Used abrasive grains are broken out of this grain reserve during grinding to expose unused, sharp grain tips. This makes it possible to achieve consistent, reproducible surface values.  
The resulting uniform scratch pattern with consistent surface roughness and gloss levels is the most important sales criterion for many manufacturers of stainless steel fronts. Today we offer more than 30 different COMPACTGRAIN series with countless grit sizes.

Giving grinding professionals a home: In 1991 we opened the Technical Center (TC). Here, we have gathered all our expertise on grinding in one place. Since then, the TC has been making sparks fly, with grinding taking place every day.
From this point onwards, our customers no longer have to interrupt their production processes to test new abrasives. The modern machine park is used for flat surface grinding, external cylindrical grinding, long belt sanding, slack of belt grinding and many other applications.  
Customised abrasives testing is carried out, and the centre has already been used to pass on grinding expertise to tens of thousands of grinding professionals from all over the world. Our seminars focus on practical experience, right from the start. Many can convey the theory, but only VSM can make abrasives tangible. And this has been the case for over thirty years in the training centre, which now known as the Competence Center.