Est. 2016 · Southern Germany

About CNC Kitchen

I'm Stefan Hermann — older than I look, father of two, and a mechanical engineer. My background is seventeen years in aerospace: eight of them as a structural engineer on landing gear systems, six as a research engineer in metal additive manufacturing. These days CNC Kitchen is what I do.

Portrait of Stefan Hermann, founder of CNC Kitchen

CNC Kitchen is where I take that industrial expertise and boil it down, so that a much larger community can enjoy the same obsession in a more casual way and learn something new with every video. It's just as much an excuse to finally test the things I've always been curious about — and to use data rather than opinion to back up a claim.

The format has stayed the same since 2016: pick a question that a lot of people argue about, build a test that can actually answer it, run enough samples that the answer means something, and publish the numbers whether or not they're the ones I expected.

How the testing works

Most results on this site come off testing equipment I built myself — usually a universal testing machine that pulls standardised specimens until they break. Depending on the question that's a dogbone coupon, a round tensile sample, or a printed hook loaded to failure. That last one has become the "CNC Kitchen Hook": a test shape that represents a realistic part under a realistic load case far better than a standard laboratory sample does.

The methods aren't a secret and they aren't certified either — this is a workshop, not an accredited lab. Test geometries and scripts are published so anyone can repeat or pick apart what I did.

How this is funded

CNC Kitchen deliberately runs on a mix of income rather than a single source. YouTube ad revenue covers the basics. Videos are sometimes sponsored, and when they are, the sponsor is named out loud in the video and the article rather than buried. Some links here are affiliate links — those are marked with an asterisk and carry a disclosure at the bottom of the post. The CNC Kitchen Store carries the parts that came out of this testing, and direct support covers the rest.

Test material costs real money, and once you have a family you realise that time is close to priceless. All of that support is what keeps the results and the content free for everyone.

The community

Stefan Hermann speaking with a microphone during a panel talk at Open Sauce
On a panel at Open Sauce — the part of the job that happens off camera.

Everything I know about 3D printing I picked up from other makers who published what they found instead of keeping it to themselves. That's the whole point of the channel now that it's the other way round: my goal is that everyone who watches walks away from a video having learned something they can use on their own printer.

So I'm regularly at 3D printing and maker events — looking at what other people have built, and talking to the people who built it. Those conversations are where a lot of the video ideas come from in the first place.

It works the other way too: the support of that same community is what lets me keep the content free for everyone, and most of my projects are free and open source in return — test geometries, scripts, apps, models. That's exactly how 3D printing got to where it is today, and it seems like the least I can do to keep it going.

The store

It started as a fairly stupid idea. I'd made some videos about heat-set inserts, people really liked them and saw the applications straight away — but there were far too many low-quality offerings around, or ones simply wrong for the job in a 3D print. So we sourced a first batch ourselves and put it on Amazon, and quickly realised that Amazon is not our sales platform of choice.

The product side of CNC Kitchen is run by my business partner and former boss Alex, out of a warehouse in the beautiful German Allgäu — first from his basement, now from a fully renovated former fire station. We source high-quality fasteners and other 3D printing accessories for makers and businesses all around the world, held to the same standard I'd want from a part I'm about to pull to failure on the test bench.

The CNC Kitchen warehouse in the Allgäu: a timber-clad former fire station with three roller doors, overlooking a lake and autumn hills
The warehouse everything ships from — a former fire station in the Allgäu, renovated with a beautiful wooden exterior.

cnckitchen.store ships from there to almost any country in the world, and cnckitchenus.store serves the US from its own warehouse. On top of that, over 40 resellers in 19 countries stock our parts, so most people can buy close to home instead of waiting on a customs form.

Beyond the videos

Over the years I've built a whole set of free browser apps around 3D printing and making. They're free for everyone, they run locally so your files never leave your machine, and I keep them as free of annoying ads as I can.

If you'd like to work together, the details are on the contact page. As much as I'd love to, I can't offer one-on-one support — please use the many online communities out there, they're eager to help. Postal and legal details are in the Impressum.

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