Erik Rotheim

Erik Andreas Rotheim ( born September 19, 1898 in Kristiania, † September 18, 1938 in Oslo) was a Norwegian engineer and inventor of the spray can.

Rise to this invention were Rotheims considerations, whether it would be possible to make the waxing his skis technically better. He finally invented a can, in addition to the actual active ingredient contained much gas as a propellant. The pressure in the vessel sat the application material after opening the shutter release quickly. On February 9, 1926 his invention was complete and worked flawlessly. His idea was to protect Rotheim by patent applications, as in Norway on October 8, 1926 or in the U.S. on September 30, 1927 (U.S. Patent 1,800,156 ). On October 9, 1927, Germany had been the patent for it.

Up to the present spray can, however, another path was still back down. Rotheims first cans were perceived as unwieldy because of its severity by a thick vessel wall and had the disadvantage that a precise dosage was not yet possible. The contents of the entire box emptied by operating the valve. Although Rotheim with the Norwegian paint factory Alf Bjercke 1928 was concerned an economic recovery for coatings, the invention was initially unsuccessful. Only after death Rotheims the triumph of the spray began. It was in the 1940s after improvements to the underlying principle on the spray head by the Americans Lyle D. Goodhue, William N. Sullivan and Robert Abplanalp an accepted means of mankind, first with the insects, and later another in various applications.