Mills CNC has recently supplied precision subcontract specialist, Nortim Precision Engineering, with two FANUC-controlled multi-tasking turning centres from DN Solutions.

The machines, a 12” chuck Puma 3100LSY and an 8” chuck Lynx 2100LSYB – both equipped with sub spindle, Y axis and driven tooling capabilities – were installed at the company’s 7000 sq ft machine shop facility in Stonehouse, Gloucestershire earlier this year.

Since installation, the two lathes have been put through their paces machining a range of high-precision, complex components.

Explains Jon Kemper, Nortim’s manufacturing director: “Mills always seems to have the right specification machines we’re looking for, and can often deliver and install them, from stock, in double-quick time.”

At the start of the year, Nortim Precision was facing a dilemma. An existing bathing and care equipment customer approached Nortim to ask if it could take on extra and regular work machining precision cylindrical parts for its range of height-adjustable baths. However, the cylinder length was beyond Nortim’s existing capacity

Lee Marner, Nortim engineering’s director, takes up the story: “We could see that the 12” chuck/102 mm bar capacity Puma 3100LSY with its 1285 mm maximum turning length and 420 mm maximum turning diameter would be the ideal machine to handle the project.”

Rather than opt for a two-axis version of the Puma 3100L series, the multi-tasking, mill-turn capabilities of the Puma 3100LSY were a key selling point.

With Nortim Precision reaping the productivity benefits from its first multi-tasking lathe, the company decided to invest in a compact multi-axis lathe to handle a majority of its smaller part processing requirements. The answer? A DN Solutions Lynx 2100LSY lathe, an 8” chuck/65 mm capacity lathe with sub spindle, Y axis and driven tools

More information www.millscnc.co.uk

With electricity bills, raw material costs and company taxes at record highs, SME manufacturers like 13-person subcontract turn-milling subcontractor C&M Precision are looking to technology to help it maintain profitability.

That is why the firm’s owner and managing director, John Cable, continues to buy Japanese-built lathes from Citizen Machinery UK. Modern versions have proprietary LFV (low frequency vibration) chip-breaking software in the operating system of the controls, helping to maximise a manufacturer’s earnings by ensuring the reliable production of added-value components, while reducing scrap rates to virtually zero.

“We were an early adopter of this technology, buying our first L20-VIIILFV Cincom sliding-head lathe in 2017, the first year the function was available on Citizen turn-mill centres in Europe,” says Cable. “I would never buy another lathe without LFV. We only source machines from Citizen and nearly half of our 13 lathes on the shop floor have the chip-breaking functionality: five Cincoms and a fixed-head Miyano.”

Four of the lathes arrived in the past two years, representing an investment of nearly £750,000 and indicating Cable’s desire to maximise C&M’s use of the technology at its modern production facility in Maldon, Essex. 

The most recent Citizen Cincom to be delivered, in June 2025, was a Cincom L32-XIILFV sliding-head lathe of nominal 32 mm bar capacity, with B-axis live tool carrier and long parts collection unit. The B-axis option on these machines is essential for milling an angled flat on a titanium ball joint, a feature that is impossible to realise on other Citizen lathes at C&M and would otherwise necessitate a second operation.

More information www.citizenmachinery.co.uk