The History of Scaffolding Manufacturers

Humans have a long history of striving to reach things beyond their grasp. The earliest evidence of this compulsion dates more than 17 000 years back. Their structures may fall somewhat short of those available from a professional scaffolding manufacturer of today. Nevertheless, cave dwellers in France erected work platforms using wooden poles inserted into holes in the stone walls during that era. Palaeolithic artists then worked from them while adorning the cave’s ceilings with scenes from their daily lives.

As humans aspired to build ever taller structures, the need for temporary work platforms, often known as staging, grew in parallel. Documentary evidence strongly suggests that the pyramid builders of Ancient Egypt also relied on supporting structures made from poles knotted together when constructing some of the associated buildings. However, it’s unlikely they employed scaffolding manufacturers for this purpose.

During medieval times, there was a boom in the construction of churches. Many monks underwent training in the art of assembling staging to cope with the growing demand. Technically, they became the world’s first professional scaffolders. Up until this point and for several more centuries, these structures consisted of wooden or bamboo poles secured by hemp or leather strips. While bamboo staging is still widely used in some countries such as Hong Kong, steel, aluminium, and more recently, synthetic composites are the materials favoured by scaffolding manufacturers of today.

However, the availability of new materials is just one factor that has contributed to the evolution of this invaluable industry. During the early 1900s, the brothers David and Daniel Jones invented a device called the “Scaffixer”, which offered a means to bind metal or wooden poles together faster and more securely than ropes. The brothers soon gained an opportunity to test their new metal couplings when awarded a contract to renovate Britain’s iconic Buckingham Palace. The subsequent success of their invention established the role of professional scaffolding manufacturers.

With that role came new responsibilities as, one by one, safety organisations around the world established standards and regulations relating to the production and performance of staging. These new rules addressed both users and producers, stipulating factors, such as the compulsory use of guard rails and toe bars above certain heights, and defining the quality requirements for the materials used to produce the poles and couplings.

The South African construction industry widely acknowledges Disc-O-Scaff as one of the leading scaffolding manufacturers. Our Kwikstage and Selflock products combine versatility with ease of assembly and are made entirely from SABS-approved materials.