Enthusiasts of leisure and relax have long appreciated the combination of the advantages of an armchair and a swing. This is how rocking furniture was born, but it is slowly becoming a thing of the past. Swing chair, also known as cocoons, have now dominated our terraces and gardens. To have a look at their production we visited Nowy Targ, where a family-owned company selling its products in Poland under Czillo brand - TimberPlus - has been operating for 30 years. Ready? Let's go!
The company's flagship product is a Swing chair with a three-legged stand, manufactured at the production plant for more than a dozen years. It is made from Polish spruce wood - the company orders up to 2,000 cubic meters annually. From the warehouse it enters the drying machine in which it must be stored between 4 to 10 days.
Then the wood is cut using a transcut stationary saw. In the case of our Swing Pod, it must be exactly 210 cm. Then the square timber must be planed using a thickness planer machine. The workers' task is just to put the wood into the machine. Once the planning process has been completed, it's time for cutting. This is how slats for the Swing Pod structure are made. The operator eliminates defective items, while those defect-free enter the gluing and bending processes.
Glue is applied to a set of slats, and thanks to the press, the wood gets the proper curvature. The entire process takes an hour. Once removed from the press, the curved pieces are sanded.
After cleaning and sanding the surface, the parts are transferred to a CNC machine tool. On the table of the five-axis CNC machine, all woodworking processes are conducted such as trimming, drilling technological holes, or milling. The CNC machine must be properly programmed. Using a specially dedicated program the designer indicates the places where exactly the wooden parts are to be cut or drilled.
Chop wood - chips fly, says an old Polish proverb. At TimberPlus, however, the sawdust and dust coming out from under the machines is extracted by a dust collection system and goes into a special tank, and then straight into a furnace heating the production hall and drying room. The filtered sawdust air is returned to the hall to avoid heat loss.
Meanwhile, operators remove any found wood imperfections such as resin nests or knot holes. It is necessary to re-sand glued patches and any other inaccuracies. Once the edges have been smoothed and rounded, individual small parts enter the brushing machine equipped with sandpaper with appropriate grain size, disc and roller brushes. Thanks to it, the wood is smooth, pleasant to touch and has no shakes or splinters.
Then, it is time for a bath - the elements enter a 20-minute bath in a copper-based formulation that protects the wood from insects, weather, or fungi. The drying process lasts 5 days. Once impregnated, the wood gets a delicate olive colour, which turns brown in the sun.
Swing Pod now needs to be pre-assembled so that the cushion support straps can be scored, some of the screws can be attached, and the workmanship quality can be inspected. Then it is disassembled again and packed.
But what would a Swing Pod be without a comfortable seat? The production plant has its own sewing room producing cushions from fabrics resistant to dirt, water, and sunlight. Everything is handmade - here quality and precision matter. The finished cushions are filled with polyurethane foam granules, and then polyester upholstery is applied.
Together with the disassembled seats, they are packed into cartons to reach their customers primarily from Germany, France, the UK and even the USA. Annually, that's more than 2,000 units. And the number of enthusiasts of relaxed rocking is still growing!
16 окт 2024
