The interview with Günther Vetter about the origin of vacuum technology
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THE Interview:
THE Invention of the Vacuum Bag
Ruth Koppenberger:
Hello. It is wonderful that you're here. I am
very pleased that you want to share the story with us and I would like to ask
you to wallow in memories and tell us how it all started back then. With the
ancestors, with my ancestors, with our ancestors.
I remember that grandpa, your father, had the
carpentry shop in Kirchdorf. And your grandfather, your mother's father, had a
carpentry shop in Pressburg – even a relatively large one, as far as I know -
before the war.
Günther Vetter:
Yes, that's right. And what I sometimes
noticed from my parents was that they had a very well run carpentry shop. My
grandfather ran the carpentry shop and my father was empolyed there. My father
was a master carpenter and my mother worked there in accounting and in
calculation. And the two met and got married. And then three children arised
from that marriage, three children were born.
And then the war came and my parents had to
flee and leave everything behind. The entire facilities, the carpentry, the
apartment and everything. And so they fled for a long time sometimes by foot
and often only with their hand luggage, because they couldn't take more with
them, via Linz to Kirchdorf and built a new life there. They bought a property and
built a little house, a single family home with a carpentry shop in the
basement and on the first floor, I mean in the ground floor.
And there I learned carpentry. I was born in
Austria and did my apprenticeship as a carpenter as well as the journeyman's
examination at my father’s carpentry shop, and then I went to Hallstatt to the
master school and there I did a lot of technical drawings, architecture and interior
design and so on, in addition to carpentry training and passed the master
craftsman's examination.
And then I came back I took over the carpentry
business from my father and I had already transformed many of my creative
visions into a reality back then. My ideas and my creativity were of course not
paid extra.
That was the selling point, so to speak, why
they came to me and, for example, had me design the interior of their bedroom or
design the interior of their coffee shop. That's how I developed a certain name
for myself, of course. And then people came to me with special requests. And
this design work has expanded more and more, so that I have given up carpentry and
literally have only been a designer. Anyways, and over time this design work
has moved more and more towards invention. New ideas have always been very
important to me. Not just designing the surface, but also redeveloping the
function.
And then it went more and more in the
direction of of carpentry facilities and auxiliary equipment. Yes, sometimes
machines as well. And that's how the new company developed, the company
Columbus, and this company then sold these inventions, which were very often
patented, and the patents as well.
And above all – because I was out there a lot
with the carpenters – I kept getting ideas from the carpenters, about problems which
I then tried to solve with new inventions.
And that's how the vacuum bag was invented. There
was always a problem when producing curved parts an covering them and so on. That
was very complex with a template and counter template.
And with the vacuum bag there was no need for
a counter template an one could produce and cover these curved parts without
much effort. And from that came the Vacuflex, a vacuum press, which was no
longer a bag, but had a work surface with a folding frame.
In that folding frame an elastic cloth was
clamped and so of course the operation was much more comfortable and much more
accurate. One could place the respective product on the work surface and close
the folding frame and then press what needs to be pressed with a vacuum. Then
of course the next step came, the warming up, the heating. Partly from above, to
reduce the pressing time, or we have constructed our own heating drawer, for
under the machine, to slide in, where one then preheated the various materials and
could then deform them when they were warm. Then, of course, a suitable
silicone membrane was needed so that the membrane does not melt and the
temperature can be withstood.
And so it developed step by step. Of course,
the main memory I have of it is driving from carpenter to carpenter.
That was impressive because that was obviously
most of the time. The invention does not take the most time, selling takes most
of the time. Then you have something that you are convinced of, but then you
have to sell it. So you have to go to the customers and convince them. Then I
went to the fairs, many fairs. It was very interesting. And so it continued to
develop. Exactly. That was the vacuum press story.
Now it's “Columbus”, thanks to your initiative
and thanks to your commitment, with which you have continued. Now I can look at
it with pride and say, “great”, it turned out well and it has continued.
Ruth Koppenberger:
Thank you, thank you. Thank you so much for
sharing your memories. It was really wonderful.
Günther Vetter:
With pleasure. Thank you.






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