11. Station: Haus Nr. 6

This building, constructed in the mid-19th century, housed the model carpenter's and joiner's workshop. It also served as a home for Carl Ludwig Althans and his family - the technical manager of the Sayn ironworks.

When Althans was 17, he was already foreman of a knife factory, before studying mathematics with Carl Friedrich Gauß, alongside geology, mechanics and architecture.

After visiting ironworks in the Harz, the Ore Mountains, Silesia, Bohemia and the Steiermark, Althans came to the Sayner Hütte in 1817. 

Here he developed and built almost all the machinery required for manufacturing operations. But because there was a shortage of suitable skilled personnel to handle the new technical equipment, in 1820 Althans founded his own apprentice school to train the workforce at the Sayner Hütte. 

A host of innovations in mining and ironworks can be traced back to him, not to speak of the development of many technical appliances. These included a water pressure plant and devices for drilling the rock used to strengthen the Ehrenbreitstein fortress. He also set up a regular steam boat service, and conducted the first detonations in the Rhine to deepen the shipping channel.

Althan's plans were used as templates for new iron foundries and blast furnaces not only in Sayn but also in Lohe and Mülhofen. He also planned rolling mills for the Remy brothers' works on the Rasselstein site in Neuwied, and in the village of Alf on the River Moselle.