Forshaga Bil & Maskin

With more than 70 years in the industry, we know the importance of a construction machine having good overall economy. Our products are characterized by high operational reliability, low maintenance costs, technical foresight, and good resale value - all in a machine that is easy to use. All production and development takes place in Sweden. Our products are found throughout Scandinavia and are used by everything from individual contractors to municipalities and large companies such as Svevia, Arento, Peab, Terranor, and Skanska.

Forshaga Bil & Maskin has its origins in the 1930s Forshaga in Värmland. During the 1950s, the company moved to central Karlstad where we still enjoy being. Today, we develop, manufacture, and sell products for the construction industry. The sand spreader and salt spreader - ForshagaSpridaren - are the company's most popular products.

ForshagaSpridaren a product of its time

For many years, Sweden has asserted itself as a technological leader, also in road maintenance - or what do you think of a 70-year-old who still has the latest technology.

1949 saw the first prototype of the ForshagaSpridaren mounted on one of the Road Administration's trucks from the Depot Workshop in Fryksta in Värmland. It was Ragnar Eriksson from Forshaga who was the inventor.

Before that time, sand spreaders usually consisted of 2-6 men with shovels, who from a truck bed with railings threw sand in appropriate places. Blue-frozen noses and a few kronor for comfort were often the salary for the usually not very sought-after job, so the success was not long in coming. In just a few years, most roadmaster areas were equipped with the ForshagaSpridaren Type 1. It soon spread across all of Scandinavia.

The ForshagaSpridaren's rotating drum with its unique placement of discharge paddles proved to be a good choice and has been copied by many over time. The ForshagaSpridaren's drum provides the most even spreading both in width and length - where the discharged amount is controlled by changing the drum's speed.

Ragnar was more foresighted than he himself could imagine when he chose to drive the sand spreader from "two holes in the wall". The natural choice at that time would have been to take the drive from the wheel, which several long-dead competitors also chose to equip their products with. However, he realized the simplicity of being able to control both engagement and disengagement and regulate the dosing via a rheostat from the driver's seat. In the early 1980s, the ForshagaSpridaren got computer-controlled steering and in 2005 also GPS-controlled spreading. A couple of years later, satisfied customers could also control their machines wirelessly - directly from their mobile phones.

Unfortunately, Ragnar did not get to experience ForshagaSpridaren's success himself, as he sadly passed away from cancer already in 1952. His wife Sonja became the one who successfully led the company for many years thereafter until their son Allan took the helm in the 1970s. Since 2016, Andreas, Allan's son, has been running the company with great energy.

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