Just three months ago, the workshop of the specialist dealer Küche & Design in Backnang near Stuttgart began operations under the "Wohnwerk" label. Emmannuil Chatziantoniou, from the three-person workshop team, is producing a round, solid 28 mm thick oak tabletop, chamfered on the underside. In the rack by the vertical panel saw, he finds a suitable offcut from an edge-glued oak panel and cuts it into a square on the sliding table saw. He then takes this to the 5-axis CNC "Profit H350" from Format4 and generates the CNC program using the "F4Integrate" programming system, which is perfectly tailored to the machine.
First, the contour of the circle needs to be milled with an end mill. To do this, he enters the dimensions of the workpiece, the circle diameter, and the position of the center point. He also assigns a tool to the program and the corresponding direction of rotation for the milling path. For the Z-step, he selects 8 mm: This means the cutter plunges 8 mm in a spiral path with each pass. To mill the chamfer, he specifies the same contour but a different tool, activates the 5-axis mode, sets the tool inclination to 55°, and programs three passes of the cutter around the workpiece. After each pass, the Z-height is reduced by 6 mm, resulting in a total chamfer height of 18 mm. The actual milling program is now complete.
Before Emmannuil starts the machine, he also defines which stops the workpiece blank should be placed against. He first positions the consoles and vacuum pods virtually on the screen. To avoid a collision, he maintains a distance from the milling paths visible on the screen. Using LED light strips, he transfers the positions of the pods and consoles from the screen to the actual machine, places the workpiece, presses start, and receives the finished milled tabletop after 3 minutes. He and his boss, Wohnwerk project manager Roland Fritz, are pleased that they can already handle 3D parts after such a short training period. Roland Fritz and Stefan Hopp, managing director of Küche und Design, have even more ambitious goals. They want to significantly expand the 250 m² workshop soon and switch production to the F4-Design CAD/CAM system, which is tailored to Format4. The software is already installed. Now, all that's left is to learn how to operate it with the help of online courses.
Kitchen studio with its own workshop
The Wohnwerk division of the kitchen studio prepares rooms for kitchen installations with various trades and has recently also started fulfilling special requests in furniture construction. In addition, it supports the kitchen installers with subsequent fabrications, for instance, if a filler strip doesn't fit.
"In-house production pays off"
Stefan Hopp says: "Our own workshop is proving to be a success for us, as we do good business with special requests. In Format4, we have found a competent partner for this journey."
