The first records of the use of sandpaper in England date back to the 18th century. Industrial use as a tool in the form of sandpaper, glass paper or flint paper began with the rapid ongoing industrialisation in Europe and America. Back then, the abrasive material was still attached to the paper backing by means of adhesive. These abrasives therefore performed poorly and they were primarily used for wood and other soft materials.

The first documented production of abrasives in Germany was set up by the company CF. Schröder in 1863. A little later, in May 1864, VSM also started, initially with the small-scale, manual production of glass and flint paper.

Industrialisation quickly placed the focus on new materials such as steel, for which glass and flint were not suitable. Emery was discovered as a more powerful alternative to glass. The hard rock did not wear out as quickly and delivered high grinding performance. It quickly became the company’s most important raw material. The emery paper was soon followed by other products such as emery cloth and emery discs.

Initially only dry abrasives were offered, but with the development of a waterproof ceramic-based bonding agent, products were also added that were suitable for wet grinding. By the turn of the century, natural abrasives such as emery were then increasingly replaced by synthetically produced abrasives such as aluminium oxide or zirconium alumina. Already at the beginning of the 20th century, VSM manufactured grinding wheels using the abrasives corundum and silicon carbide, which are still known and used today.

From the 1960s and 1970s onwards, a range of technical innovations enabled VSM to improve the quality of abrasives to a new level. Electrostatic coating, for example, which has been used since 1962, where abrasive grains are consistently applied with the tip uppermost on the backing, significantly increased the stock removal rate in one fell swoop.

1978 saw the next big step: VSM launched an abrasive with grain agglomerates. With the VSM COMPACTGRAIN long-term abrasive, new grains are released gradually and a new sharp grain can be ground again and again. This means that constant, reproducible surface values can be achieved with a uniform scratch pattern or gloss level, which is a particular requirement in the production of stainless steel fronts. To this day, VSM COMPACTGRAIN is still a bestseller. With more than 30 compact grain series, VSM has the widest range on the market today.

A particularly important milestone was the start of our own ceramic grain production in 2004 at the Hanover location. Like all VSM ceramic grain products, the first product, VSM CERAMICS, has a self-sharpening effect that ensures consistently high stock removal. From 2005 onwards, its success began in countless customer applications, and it delivered particularly impressive performance in the grinding of unalloyed steels and stainless steels. Customers achieved up to a 50 percent increase in service life compared to other ceramic grain abrasives. A new era of stock removal had begun.

In 2007, we launched our VSM Diamond and CBN abrasives. These were specially developed for machining extremely hard materials such as tungsten carbide, titanium carbide, chromium oxide, glass, ceramic, GRP, Kevlar and natural stone.

In 2018, VSM took ceramic grain development to the next level with its geometrically shaped VSM ACTIROX. It achieves even greater stock removal – maximum stock removal, as we rightly say – with long service life and an aggressive, cool cut. With ACTIROX, we are one of the few manufacturers worldwide of geometrically shaped ceramic grains.

In the same year, VSM launched an abrasive innovation that enabled grinding and polishing in one step. The “coated” ILUMERON goes one step further than our previous long-term abrasives, as it enables a particularly high gloss level. The extremely tight tolerances in the ground surfaces impressed users all over the world.

In 2023, a special development for the grinding of aluminium and non-ferrous metals also came onto the market: VSM ALU-X significantly reduces chip adhesion and thus reduces tool changes. The increase in performance enables faster machining and lowers the process costs. Grease-free and oil-free grinding keeps the workplace clean.

What does the future hold? This is an exciting question that we would like to answer. We are continuing to work hard to offer our customers the best and most innovative abrasive solutions.