OLBRICH is a leading manufacturer of customized designed and manufactured production equipment of coating and laminating lines as well as single machines. OLBRICH serves besides the wallcovering, flooring and technical textiles industries also the paper, film and foil converting industry in Europe and worldwide.
OLBRICH GmbH with Polytype Converting GmbH and R+S Technik GmbH form today´s OLBRICH Group with approx. 900 employees in their global network of facilities. As a production machinery and equipment manufacturer that has been operating successfully on the market since 1949.
The sound process knowhow in combination with the own technical centres in Germany and Switzerland with five different pilot plants allow the realization of innovations: they provide proven knowledge on planned investments under production conditions and are the perfect complement of the engineering competence rendered by OLBRICH.
The main features of the three pilot lines located in the headquarter in Bocholt, Germany are:
1st Pilot line BA-1: This coating and laminating line has a working width/speed of up to 22"(558.8mm)/300fpm. It can be adapted for any process, including the components listed above. Newly developed designs and modules can be added at customer's request, for testing new ideas and/or products.
2nd Pilot line BA-2: This paper/film/foil coating and laminating line with a working width/speed of up to 42"(1050 mm)/1640fpm. It incorporates latest technologies with focus on coating, laminating and drying for high-end products and it can also be adapted for any process, including the components listed above.
3rd Pilot line PLA-1: This embossing and laminating line has a working width/speed of up to 40"(1000mm)/650fpm. It offers a wide range of heat lamination of up to three layers and embossing technology at production scale.
OLBRICH became the major supplier of production lines for the modern wallcovering industry – for good reason – because OLBRICH lines set standards both in regard to efficiency and to the flexibility of applications. From the single winding machines up to the complex combined printing lines. We supply a custom-fit high-quality line to you, which is easy to maintain. This is advanced technology for the wallcovering industry.
In addition to the conventional wallcoverings available on the market, there is a wide range of textile wallcoverings or special wallcoverings offered on the market by the most diverse manufacturers. To differentiate these product segments in the field of textile or special wallcoverings, we refer to them as "commercial wallcoverings". The product segment addressed here is a relatively large market, which is offered almost exclusively in North and Central America and Asia, but can also be found more and more here in Europe in the hotel and catering industry and in hospitals.
A textile wallcovering or commercial wallcoverings is, as the name suggests, a textile wallcovering. More precisely, it is a wallcovering whose surface consists of textiles. There are many different materials such as silk, velour, jute, imitation leather, linen and also cover foils and PVC foils for the backs. Depending on the textile material used, a smooth, fine, crimped or coarse surface structure characteristic of the material is created.
While the upper layer of a commercial wallcovering can thus consist of different textiles, the reverse side of the wallcovering has a PVC, TPO or, more recently, a nonwoven backing. The production process to create the permanent bond between the upper material from textile and the carrier material is called laminating. Today, dispersion lamination (or “wet lamination”) is mostly used for this purpose. Here, the carrier material is wetted with a dispersion adhesive and then the textile outer material is applied to it. The advantage of this lamination is that it is permeable to air and thus prevents the formation of mould behind the wallcovering.
OLBRICH GmbH offers a wide range of different machines and complete systems to produce these special wallcoverings products. Enclosed you can see a sketch of a typical production plant for the lamination the different layers: textile, foil and also PVC sheets form the commercial wallcovering.
