A facility for plastic deformation of single-crystal germanium wafers is described. It consists of a commercial tube furnace which radiates heat to evacuated quartz-glass tubes housing the tools for bending and flattening of the wafers. The facility is semi-automatic and requires minimal attention. All movements and temperature changes are done by a robot via a PLC-control system. Two nine-crystal focusing monochromators (54 x 116 and 70 x 116 mm(2)) made from 100 wafers with average mosaicity similar to 13' have been constructed. Summaries of the test results are presented. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.