Torques
Thomas Kreuz designs and builds spice mills under the WauWau label. A visit to his workshop and a local inspection of his store.
By Barbara Knapp, photos by Dieter Brasch
We meet Thomas Kreuz in his house in Haugsdorf, Lower Austria, where he has set up his workshop, his studio, in the former barn and set up the lathe. Here he tinkers and tries things out, develops prototypes, produces small series and one-off pieces. He starts up the lathe for us and demonstrates how a stylish mill body is created from a blank with a great deal of skill and sensitivity.
"I have an idea or a client, then I make a model, change and tinker until the product fits. If a mill then works, I produce a small series, ten to fifteen pieces. If it's well received and sells well, I sometimes make minor changes and then it goes into series production," explains Thomas Kreuz. That means he draws the model in Autocad, sends it to a turning shop in Znojmo, where the wood is CNC milled or turned. "This computerized manufacturing is much more accurate than if I make a template and work on my lathe..." The master fishes the prototype of the chili mill from the workbench, explains the story of its creation:" It started with a piece of wood, then I experimented with the sheet metal, the punched holes were too big or too small, so I could turn, I mounted a simple machine handle. In the beginning it's all about function, there everything is very rudimentary, the form comes at the end." From the idea to the finished piece is often a long road. Take, for example, the pepper mill he designed and made for the city of Stuttgart. I made a prototype, then sent six or seven models until one was selected and the mill was ordered.
Thomas Kreuz is a trained goldsmith, later studied product design at the University of Applied Arts. He has been building mills since 1999, and the first one was made of porcelain. How did it come to be made of wood? "Porcelain production is very time-consuming, you need expensive kilns, you can't change shapes so easily. Wood is cheaper and much more indirect, you can change something quickly..." The counterpart to creative design is Swiss precision. The grinder for salt and pepper mills is manufactured by a small family business near Zurich. The special feature is that the grind can be adjusted on the underside of the mill, not on the head as with conventional ones, which inevitably leads to it being permanently adjusted by the rotary movement.
Change of location: WauWau is the El Dorado for pepper and chili aficionados. Mills in all colors, sizes and shapes, including true works of art that are created in cooperation with other creative people. Speaking of which, if you have a special piece of wood, a great idea or simply some money to spare, you can have your own mill created. This is how the latest highlight, a travel pepper mill, was created from a customer request - small, chic, functional. The next prank is in the pipeline, a combination of pepper and chili mill in pocket format. An extremely charming little fellow is the "Little Sailor". The body is turned from walnut, the head is milled from aluminum, the nose is a Bakelite ball, the earring is made of copper.
The torque is not only in the production, but also for the user entscheident: For example, the chili mill is loaded extremely sharp, two turns give very spicy...
