Over 50 years of experience...

Innovations that come about by accident are often the most successful - as happened in Switzerland over 50 years ago.

It was then that technicians of the Basel textile dyeing factory were looking for an alternative to the wooden cylinders around which the fabric was wound during the dyeing process. Splintered and coloured wood was a danger to the expensive textiles and a replacement was urgently required. A solution was sought in the framework of an international ideas competition. The new material had to be able to be manufactured in the form of a cylinder with a circular cross section and constant outer diameter, be resistant to corrosion, have a low weight and a smooth surface to guarantee a uniform dyeing result, and moreover, it had to be economical.

This was no easy challenge but the machine manufacturers of the Basel textile dyeing factory rose to the occasion, displaying their creative skills. They built a centrifuge and produced a roller made of fibreglass and polyester resin. It quickly became apparent that not only the outer surface of the roller but also the inner layer showed unique features.

One step led to another, and in 1957 the first spun pipe made of glass-fibre reinforced plastic was made. In the same year, the Swiss firm patented the production process and started to manufacture "rollers" for their own use in the dyeing mill. The first external application in the form of pipes and pipe couplings took place a little while later.

Step by step in the subsequent years, the pipes were improved, the production process automated, and the product range extended and supplemented with shaped parts. In 1977, the Wietersdorfer Group acquired the license for pipe production in Austria, and by 1984 had a 50 per cent share in HOBAS. Today, the Wietersdorfer Group has a majority holding in HOBAS, and the spun, glass-fibre reinforced pipes made of unsaturated polyester are used in the fields of drinking water and sewage systems as well as for industrial purposes and power stations. HOBAS also supplies top products for irrigation systems, pressured and pressureless applications, and ditchless pipe laying. Furthermore, HOBAS manufactures jacking pipes, couplings and shafts, containers and specially shaped pieces, thus supplying its customers with made-to-order one-stop pipe systems.