Rösler Reports Meeting of "OTR Tyre Giants"

Wilhelm Schelkmann (94), the inventor of the pre-cure tyre renewal process, invited Paul Rösler Sen. (69) to his villa in Mallorca, where the two friends discussed how the pre-cure process (especially when used for 63” tyres) was evolving under Rösler Groups’ guidance. Rösler had a lot of news to share, including the renewal facilities completed in Australia, Kazakhstan, Indonesia and Uzbekistan.

The worldwide renewal of OTR tyres using the SPR-System is the evolution of an idea by Schelkmann to use vacuums and vulcanization. Schelkmann made 173 patents to secure his place in construction tyre history. In the year 1976 he sold these patents for 20 million deutschmarks (40 million euro) to Bandag in the USA. With this sale, Schelkmann settled into retirement, though his name remains important within the construction tyre industry. Bandag urgently needed these patents as they dealt mainly with pre-cure retreads of truck tyres and many of their processes were already patented by Schelkmann.

In the year 1999 Rösler bought the company Reifen Schelkmann from the Diehl-Gruppe and constructed the largest OTR cold process machine in the world, which to this day still holds the same title. Every year Rösler renews up to 10,000 OTR tyres and is already planning to construct more retreading facilities in Russia, Canada, the Middle East and Chile.

The next meeting of these two construction tyre giants has already been set: 13 March 2011 to celebrate Schelkamnn’s 95th birthday.