Continuous ceiling element with two different visual surfaces © FHS Holzbau
Be it Nordic spruce, oak, walnut, Swiss pine or silver fir, either polished, brushed, oiled or glazed - next to standard visual quality from spruce, FHS Holzbau also offers its customers cross-laminated timber in exclusive visual surfaces from 20 types of wood. Thanks to a special manufacturing process, these surfaces are virtually crack-free and have very good dimensional stability in typical living climate conditions. The FHS stairs division produces high-grade stairs for carpenters and fellow stair producers from a material mix of wood, steel, stainless steel and glass. All steps of production are kept in the company's own factory; this way, FHS can realize customer wishes not only in great detail but also on time. "For FHS, the combination of a high performance level and individuality in this domain is not a contradiction but a requirement," says Max Frisch, managing director of FHS. This is only possible due to the very high level of cross-material competency in the work preparation process where 15 qualified technicians and engineers work on constructive implementations of the customers' ideas. Next to a high-performance wood production with in-house solid wood panel factory complete with HF press, FHS also accommodates a metal work factory certified according to EN 1090-1/-2/3 with in-house laser and water-jet systems up to 8 m of length as well as several CNC processing centers for production of special components from steel and stainless steel.
FHS understands the manufacturers and finds solutions enabling the craftspeople to work fast and with ease on the construction site. All of these years of expertise in handling different types of wood or materials and the technically challenging CNC processing provided the basis for developing the special surfaces for CLT.
Separately air-conditioned fine timbers
The wood that is used for manufacturing the visual surfaces is stored in an air-conditioned hall for stair construction with an area of over 2,500 m². Over 50 truckloads of wood are available non-stop. This way, also urgent and completely individual customer requests can be taken care of promptly.
Top layer without general finger joints
Premium surfaces from Nordic spruce (above) and oak (below) are only two of the numerous options © FHS Holzbau
The basis for the premium anti-crack surfaces with particularly good dimensional stability is the production method developed by FHS. In this method, the top visual layer is applied as an additional, specifically manufactured layer that is not relevant in terms of statics. It is joined with the CLT by full-surface bonding with PUR adhesive.
A thick cross-band veneer layer is used to ensure maximum dimensional stability in the visual layer. The structure of the exclusive visual surfaces follows the structural principle of cross-laminated timber. It is also possible to finish a continuous CLT element with different surfaces.
Precise, splinter-free finishing
Premium surfaces from Nordic spruce (above) and oak (below) are only two of the numerous options © FHS Holzbau
Several CNC processing centers guarantee precise and splinter-free processing and allow for fast implementation even of technically very ambitious customer requirements. Just like for stair production, the controls of the CNC systems were developed in-house for timber construction.
This is the only way to realize fully automated and very precise geometries in 3D space - including millings on the face side for cables with a drilling depth of up to 3.2 m, the free shape processing and complex geometries with several hundred processing steps per component. The only basis necessary is the digital construction drawing.
