Located in a beautiful valley in the Austrian Alps, just outside of Innsbrook proper, is the home of Felder and Hammer stationary woodworking tools. Felder and its newer sub-brand, Hammer, are power tools for serious woodworkers. Extremely well known in Europe, they are less of a known entity in the US. (Although that situation is changing.)
Felder was started about 50 years ago by Johan Felder, a man whose family had been blacksmiths for hundreds of years. Although understandably antiquated by today’s standards, the first Felder machines had innovation and high quality in common with the products of today.
Born in (or perhaps better described as forming) the European tradition of using a single chassis to house components that perform several different tasks, Felder machines (which include the less pricey Hammer brand) are multi purpose in design. Because of this fact -- and this is often misunderstood by US woodworkers -- these machines can be “assembled” in different configurations. For example, you can buy combination planer-jointer. (Which makes so much sense because with it you can face joint lumber as wide as you can thickness surface – brilliant!) But you can also hang a very powerful slot-mortiser on one side of the planer-jointer. (One chassis, three “tools.”) But hold on, why not add a really great table saw (with a sliding panel-cutting table and a fore-and-aft adjustable rip fence) and call it a day: one chassis four “tools”. Now you’ve got your whole shop set up. But hey, you’ve already got a very good mortising machine, and you like to use your groovy new router for slot mortising, so – get rid of the slot-mortiser. (Back to one chassis, three “tools.”) Such is the advantage of multi-use stationary woodworking tools.
I visited the main Felder facility to have a look at how they go about making these top-flight woodworking tools. Having just spent a good bit of time observing many different sorts of woodworking machinery being made in Asia and other places, I was able to make informed comparisons. The various buildings are situated on a large campus. The processes are integrated throughout these buildings. There is a significant use of CNC machining tools – but also a surprising number of manually performed tasks. As you may imagine, there is a huge emphasis on efficiency. According to my guide on the tour, only by producing high-quality innovative products with the most modern and efficient methodology, is Felder able to continue to manufacture these tools in Europe. What I observed confirmed my previously held opinion that these are robust tools of superior engineering.
Before I went to the factory, I spent a bit of time in their showroom. The tools are set up in various configurations demonstrating the scope of the Felder/Hammer product line. Also in the showroom was a small “museum” of historic Felder products. They were fascinating to me. One observation that hit home was the long years that the Felder Group has spent actively refining this technology. And that steady incremental improvement over the last 50 years has accumulated into tools of exceptional value.
All in all, it was a fascinating and educational visit, one which I will remember for a long time.
Images top to bottom: Your wayward editor sitting with a hot new friend. An example of Felder's new 500 series. A couple of images of very early Felder woodworking machines. Several images from the manufacturing floor of the Felder complex.
No comments:
Post a Comment