The Grammlich furniture store in Buchen in the Odenwald region spans two building complexes, on the right and left sides of the street. It also includes a joinery shop accessible via a loading ramp. I step inside and find myself in the machine room. To the left, along the window front, a jointer and a thicknesser from Format4 are running quietly; to the right stands an edge banding machine, and straight ahead is a 5-axis CNC, both also from Format4. The pentagonal hall also houses a spindle moulder, a wide-belt sander, and a sliding table saw, as well as the panel storage and a vertical panel saw in an adjacent room.
Apprentice Nadine Gerlach is surfacing thick, trimmed, and parallel-cut oak boards for a tabletop, while Lena Krone and Georg Reider are planing them to thickness. Georg Reider takes the boards from the outfeed side, keeps an eye on the surface quality, and notices an irregularity caused by a nick in two of the planer knives. There must have been a small stone in the wood. The two of them inform workshop manager and master joiner Simon Parth, who is designing furniture with CAD/CAM in the adjacent office between the two bench rooms. With the case containing a torque screwdriver, resin remover, and reversible knives that belongs to both planing machines, he goes to the thicknesser. Lena Krone has already opened up the machine and located the two damaged knives on the "Silent-Power" spiral cutter block, which features two spirally arranged rows of four-sided reversible knives. Using the tools from the case, Simon Parth loosens the screw holding each knife, one after the other, rotates it 90°, and tightens the screw again. It takes less than five minutes for the team to be able to resume their work.
The Perfect Look and Feel
Georg Reider takes a closer look at the next piece of wood coming out of the machine. He runs his fingers over it, holds it against the light, rocks it slightly up and down, and says: "What I feel is a smooth, flawless surface with a delicate oak grain structure. While I can't feel any knife marks, I can see their very faint shadows in the light. We won't have to do much sanding on this."
Three Furniture Stores, One Joinery Shop
The furniture store in Buchen in the Odenwald, with branches in Karlsruhe and Straubenhardt in the Northern Black Forest, grew out of the joinery shop that was founded in 1939 and is still in operation today. It offers a wide range of products for living rooms, bedrooms, and kitchens. Owner Volker Hofmann explains: "In 2024, we modernized the joinery shop so that we can produce even more customized solutions ourselves, efficiently and to a high standard of quality." Simon Parth, who had already completed his apprenticeship at Grammlich but had since been working for another company, took charge of the modernization and returned as the head of the joinery shop. It employs six apprentices, two journeymen, and the master craftsman. As a master craftsman student, he visited Felder in Hall in Tirol. The machines and the company had convinced him, so he chose Felder/Format4 as the supplier for machinery and dust extraction technology.
A Proactive Partner
Simon Parth says: "Felder and its branch in Betzfeld, 50 km away, have given us proactive support. The machines and the dust collection system run reliably, quietly, precisely, and are easy to operate."
