Ben Supé (20) from Schäftlarn has always found that wood is an exciting material.
He did every student internship in a carpenter's workshop.
Then he began an apprenticeship as a carpenter, and this autumn he passed the journeyman's examination.
And then not only won competitive competitions at the district and state level.
But also with his journeyman's piece itself attracted some attention.
Schäftlarn
- Ben Supé's journeyman piece met with so much enthusiasm that he even got it on television.
It's a kitchen, a kitchen for a motorhome.
On the one hand it is shapely, on the other hand it is also super-practical.
It looks a bit like a music chest, except that when you open the lid, you don't see a turntable.
But a spirit stove with two burners.
A lot of talent inherited from parents
Ben Supé is 20 years old and grew up in Schäftlarn, where he also lives with his parents.
They must have given him a lot of talent, his mother, Monika, is an architect and artist, his father is a master machinist, he also teaches at a Montessori school.
The Supés planned the wooden house in which they live themselves and also expanded the interior themselves. Ben Supé says: "We tinkered around a lot."
In the competition he even helped other participants
Steiger and Lankes said about him, where he learned: “Ben is just wood.” During the interview in the joiner's office, he even brought the bread box that he had to build in the state competition.
A boring piece compared to the kitchen, but the workmanship is perfect.
It was important to connect prefabricated boards in the traditional way with dovetail joints and mortises.
Ben says he was done so quickly that he was even able to help a competitor.
The mood was "friendly, not like a competition" anyway.
With his performance, he qualified for the national competition in Trier, which should actually have taken place in autumn, but was then postponed to next year due to the corona.
Whoever wins it has a ticket for the World Cup, which would then be in Shanghai.
He likes that no wood is like another
Ben wears his long blond hair tied up.
He says he likes the way the stone pine, from which the bread box is made, smells.
He likes that no wood is like the other, that wood that is “cut open” loses its tension and can become crooked.
As a carpenter you always have to think ahead.
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Ben's journeyman piece: the small kitchen is 50 centimeters wide, 30 to 35 centimeters deep and 35 to 40 centimeters high.
And therefore no bigger than a large suitcase.
He even designed the handles on the right and left himself - and then had them forged himself.
© Andrea Kästle
According to the guild, an apprentice has 80 hours for his journeyman's piece.
Ben coped easily with it, the kitchen was up after 74 hours.
With a double bottom in the lid for spices and plates, with a manually jointed drawer and compartment with sliding door for pots, cups and wooden boards.
Ben then turned a couple of spoons and a spatula, he built a small table so that you can put the kitchen outside, where it might not be so clean.
He wants to make his master in Garmisch
Yes, he says, he would definitely like to mass-produce his refined kitchen, which is ultimately not much bigger than a suitcase.
He says: "Bringing your own ideas to a man: that's the greatest thing that can happen to you." He has a little experience with that, by the way.
The bowls that he turned in abundance between school and apprenticeship were also sold at Christmas markets, among other places.
Now he will first apply to the school for wood and design in Garmisch to do his master's there.
He's already tried out his kitchen, which, by the way, also fits perfectly into the family's own mobile home.
On the day on which the journeyman's pieces were rated in Miesbach, he drove the kitchen further out towards the mountains.
Unpacked them somewhere, lifted the lid, took two pots out of the compartment under the stove.
And made spaghetti with vegetable sauce.