No matter if mattress core, seat upholstery or insulating mat: cutting machines made by Fecken-Kirfel put the most diverse materials such as hard and soft foams or rubber into format. Recent development of our team of engineers is an innovative cutting process which allows a nearly dust-free cutting even of materials that have been difficult to cut in the past: the fully automatic cut-off and trimming machine T 6.
 
Background idea for this new development was that many foam producers had problems when cutting hard, cold visco foams or very soft foams (such as visco, PU foams or latex). As a solution it was initially considered that the raw material suppliers would have to change the composition of their foam to make it easier to cut. However, this would have changed the characteristics of the foam itself. In order to process also these difficult materials in a quick and precise way, the T 6 features an innovative cutting principle which has also been filed for a patent application: the rotating band knife with counter-moving knife motion.

Background idea for this new development was that many foam producers had problems when cutting hard, cold visco foams or very soft foams (such as visco, PU foams or latex). As a solution it was initially considered that the raw material suppliers would have to change the composition of their foam to make it easier to cut. However, this would have changed the characteristics of the foam itself. In order to process also these difficult materials in a quick and precise way, the T 6 features an innovative cutting principle which has also been filed for a patent application: the rotating band knife with counter-moving knife motion.
 
The cutting with a counter-moving knife is already known from hedge trimmers, electric kitchen knives and machines for agricultural use where the cut is realised by two rigid oscillating knives. The knife principle by FK with a single band knife and counter-motion (there are virtually two knives in the cutting area) is, however, absolutely new and offers so far unknown possibilities: at a considerably reduced cutting resistance the T 6 can now cut materials with a high density at a higher cutting speed.
 
So far, a reduction of the cutting resistance could be realised by using e.g. a band saw. However, as the sawing process is an abrasive process it usually produces a lot of dust. The toothed and calotte ground knife halves of the T 6 which are moving against each other, demonstrably bring an improvement to this process by cutting even harder materials at nearly no dust production.
When cutting with the previous principle of a rotating band knife many materials have been drawn down by the knife traction which could lead to poor results in the cutting quality. This negative effect could now largely be compensated by the knife halves moving against each other.
 
Moreover, the new T 6 machine is characterised by a considerable reduction in the required space compared to existing trimming machines. At the same time, the T 6 also offers the possibility to do diagonal cuts as well as rectangular cuts.