More than 110 years in the service of cleanliness

In 1894, at the age of 24, Anton Weber, who learnt brushmaking from his father, master brushmaker Karl Weber, founded his own business. Apart from his wife and three children, he had three more employees. Soon, his workshop became too small and Anton Weber purchased the small mill between today’s Bad Camberg districts of Erbach and Oberselters.

The manufacture of brushes required much skilled craftwork. However, with the help of a mill-wheel and a  generator he managed to operate a hand-saw and a circular saw, a planning machine and a drill for the manufacture of wooden brush bodies. At that time, the range of brushes mostly included brushes for the home and for agriculture, which were delivered in small carts by his wife and children to the household goods shops of the neighbouring towns.

During the first 10 to 20 years after the foundation of the company, brushes were manufactured according to the traditional methods. These activities were called rolling, filling, pinningand tying. But soon after the turn of the century, the founder of the company realised the increasing demand for road sweeping devices and — due to rapid developments in machine construction — for mechanical road cleaning.

In the mid-twenties, his four sons Anton, August, Wilhelm and Franz took over the business, and soon they began a close cooperation with the most important manufacturers of road sweeping devices. The road sweeping devices of the time were pulled by horses, but the sweeping devices already used Weber rotary brushes, which were attached diagonally, like on modern road sweeping machines.

Artificial bristle was still not known. Animal and natural fibres in different qualities were used, such as horse and hog bristles, piassava, bassine, brushwood, coconut fibre and root fibres were the favoured materials, which often could only be attached to the various shapes of wooden brushes with great technical skill.

During the two world wars, the development and production of brush systems largely stagnated. But because the company’s buildings largely remained untouched by the effects of the war, manufacture could soon be resumed.

During the period of economic recovery, our company made technical progress, too. Synthetic bristles and bristles made from steel as well as modern filling and punching machines opened up completely new and varied applications.The company however remained faithful to its specialist area of ‘road sweeper broom’. This central product range was continually added to, first of all for large road sweeping machines, and later for medium-sized industrial sweeping machines and small floor cleaning machines.

That was the time when our company established its current leading market position. Once the last two sons of the founder of the company died, Anton junior and Franz, who had acted as careful leaders in second generation.

Franz Weber junior and Anton Weber junior’s son in law Hellmut Menken continued their successful market strategy.

In the 1980s, a further specialist brush area was added: the so-called ‘weed brush’ — specialist brushes for the herbicide-free removal of weeds. 

This required the development of brush systems for special devices and sweepers that guaranteed

the easy removal of weeds from all kinds of surfaces. With the political turn in the GDR responsible companies realised early on that the new federal states did not just mean new markets, but that an economic revival can only come about through entrepreneurial commitment, as it is often demanded from medium-sized businesses.

In 1996, the subsidiary Schmölln was put into operation. Today, 6 employees have a job with a future.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the fourth generation, Ulrich Menken and his wife Stefanie, are ready to continue the 114 year old (young) family business.