Solingen was once the "workshop for the world". In the 19th century, cutlery of all kinds was supplied all over the world from the town in the Bergisches Land region. One of the largest drop forges was the Hendrichs company, which was founded in 1886.
Industrial Museum is still completely preserved.
It bangs and hisses. The drive belts whirr and the hammer strikes loudly on the red-hot iron. Visitors to the LVR Hendrichs Drop Forge Industrial Museum can experience the hammer action live. The Hendrichs drop forge is one of the few museums that also produces the museum shears.
For 100 years, from 1886 to 1986, scissor blanks were forged in the red brick buildings with the typical sloping shed roofs and high chimneys. With 33 drop hammers, the drop forge founded by the two scissor grinders Peter and Friedrich Wilhelm Hendrichs soon became one of the largest and most successful in Solingen. Until it closed in the mid-1980s, when the Rhineland Regional Association converted the entire factory complex, including the entrepreneur's villa next door, into a museum
Machines from the founding years
Everything was left as it was. Most of the machines, drop hammers and presses used in the demonstrations date back to the founding years. Visitors can also take a look at the changing room with the old lockers and the washroom, where the long row of rotating wash basins is still in place. And in the office you can still hear the clattering of the old typewriters.
