What Is Swiss CNC Machining?
Swiss CNC machining (also known as Swiss screw machining or sliding headstock turning) feeds bar stock through a stationary guide bushing directly adjacent to the cutting tool. Because the material is supported right where the cut happens, deflection and vibration are eliminated — allowing ultra-tight tolerances, micro features, and length-to-diameter aspect ratios over 20:1 that conventional CNC lathes cannot achieve.
Bar Stock Feeds Through Guide Bushing
The raw bar feeds through a carbide-lined guide bushing, providing zero-clearance support right next to the cutting insert.
Sliding Headstock Moves Along Z-Axis
Instead of moving the cutting tool along the part, the headstock advances the bar past fixed gang tooling, maintaining maximum rigidity.
Live Tooling & Sub-Spindle Dual Machining
Cross-milling, axial drilling, threads, and back-side features are completed in a single setup before parting off the finished part.
One Swiss Process, Two Kinds of Daly City Customer
An OEM supplier and a five person startup ask a Swiss shop for very different things, and Daly City has both. The supplier side machines against the northern Peninsula medical economy, where UCSF Daly City clinical research programs and Seton Medical Center operations pull steady volumes of instrument components, and where Genentech and the South San Francisco biotech corridor extend that demand into drug delivery devices and lab automation. Those buyers care about locked processes, CMM data on every lot and a price that holds across a blanket order. Bar fed Swiss turning delivers exactly that, because once a job is proven the sub spindle finishes every part complete in one setup, piece 1 to piece 50,000.
The startup side looks different. Hardware and device founders working along the Mission Street corridor or commuting through Daly City BART are iterating, not scaling. They need a Swiss quality connector pin or a cannulated screw in quantity ten, a DFM note telling them their 0.030 inch wall will chatter and a requote when revision C lands. RivCut runs no minimum order for that reason. Prototype quantities go on the same sliding headstock machines as production, so the tolerances a founder validates at qty 10 are the tolerances the contract manufacturer sees at qty 10,000.
Geography helps both groups. Our shop sits in Union City, about 35 minutes across the bay by car, so ground shipping to Daly City lands in 1 to 2 business days and an engineer who wants to watch a first article run can actually drive over. Parts headed onward, to a South SF biotech partner or an East Coast contract assembler through SFO, ship the same day they pass inspection.
Engineered for Micro-Precision & High Volume
From single medical prototypes to automated 100,000+ piece production runs — built for zero defect manufacturing.
±0.0001" Micro Tolerance
Holding ultra-precise concentricity, diameter, and thread pitch tolerances on slender pins, shafts, and medical implants where standard lathes fail.
Single-Setup Completion
Multi-axis live tooling and sub-spindles handle turning, off-center milling, cross-drilling, hex broaching, and thread whirling with zero secondary setups.
Superior Ra 16 Surface Finish
Rigid guide bushing support eliminates chatter and micro-vibration, consistently producing mirror-smooth Ra 16 µin (0.4 µm) turned surfaces as-machined.
Lights-Out Production Savings
Automatic bar feeders and continuous chip management allow 24/7 un-attended operation, dramatically lowering unit costs for mid-to-high volume orders.
Swiss Machining Services Suite
Sliding headstock capabilities engineered for challenging small-diameter components.
Micro-Miniature Turning
Machining small-diameter components down to 0.020" (0.5 mm) with tight features, internal bores, and miniature threads for medical instruments and micro-valves.
Down to 0.5 mm barHigh L/D Ratio Slender Shafts
Turning long, slender shafts and pins with length-to-diameter ratios up to 20:1 without chatter, taper, or deflection.
L/D up to 20:1Multi-Axis Live Tooling
Up to 12 axes with motorized driven tools for off-center milling, keyways, cross-drilled passages, hex flats, and helical thread whirling.
Up to 12-axis liveDual-Spindle Sub-Machining
Synchronized pick-off sub-spindle finishes the back end of the part—chamfering, counterboring, and tapping—delivering 100% complete parts off the line.
100% finished partsMedical & Implant Machining
Precision turning of Titanium Ti-6Al-4V ELI bone screws, dental implant posts, orthopedic pins, and endoscope tips with ISO 13485 quality control.
Titanium & 316L medicalHigh-Volume Bar Fed Runs
Automated 12ft bar loaders, high-pressure coolant (2,000 PSI), and automated part catchers support fast production runs from 500 to 100,000+ pieces.
500 to 100,000+ pcs
Titanium Grade 5 Dental Implant Post & Bone Screw
Swiss turned for a medical device manufacturer requiring intricate thread geometry, micro-cannulation through-holes, and tight hex drive features. Machined in a single operation with zero hand deburring required.
tolerance held
surface finish
turnaround
2,500-piece run
- Optical comparator & CMM dimensional inspection report
- Mill test certs (EN 10204 3.1) with heat lot traceability
- Passivation certs per ASTM A967 / ASTM F86
- Certificate of Conformance per medical purchase order
Swiss Turning vs. Standard Lathe vs. CNC Milling
Choose the right manufacturing method based on geometry, tolerances, and batch size.
Stocked Materials for Swiss Turning
Precision ground round bar stock in metals, medical alloys, and engineering plastics.
Titanium Alloys
Ti-6Al-4V (Grade 5), Ti-6Al-4V ELI (Grade 23), Commercially Pure Titanium (Grade 2). Ideal for biocompatible implants, dental screws, and aerospace pins.
Stainless Steels
303, 304/304L, 316/316L, 17-4 PH, 440C, Custom 455. Excellent corrosion resistance, high tensile strength, and medical compliance.
Copper & Brass Alloys
C36000 Free-Cutting Brass, C17200 Beryllium Copper, Tellurium Copper C14500. Perfect for gold-plated electrical contacts and probe tips.
Specialty & Superalloys
Inconel 718, Kovar, Nitronic 60, Hastelloy C-276, Nitinol. High-temperature and controlled-expansion applications for aerospace and energy.
Medical Plastics
PEEK (Unfilled & 30% Glass Filled), Delrin (POM-H), PTFE (Teflon), Ultem 1000, Torlon 4203. Biocompatible, autoclavable, and dimensionally stable.
Alloy & Tool Steels
4140, 4340, A2, D2, M2 tool steel. High wear resistance and toughness after vacuum heat treating for mechanical shafts and dowels.
DFM Tips for Swiss Turned Parts
Optimize your 3D CAD models and drawings for maximum Swiss machining efficiency.
1. Precision Ground Bar Stock
Because the bar slides through a guide bushing, use h8 diameter tolerance precision ground bar stock to prevent binding or loose play.
2. Thread Relief Grooves
Provide a thread relief necking groove at thread shoulders (minimum 1.5x thread pitch) to allow clean single-point thread tool retraction.
3. Corner Radii & Chamfers
Specify internal corner radii of at least R 0.010" (0.25 mm) and external 45° lead-in chamfers to ease automated tool engagement and deburring.
Daly City Applications for Swiss Turning
The Daly City part families that belong on a Swiss lathe.
Medical Devices & Biotech
Medical is Daly City's strongest manufacturing signal, anchored by UCSF Daly City research programs, Seton Medical Center and the Genentech led biotech cluster next door in South San Francisco. Swiss turning covers the small end of that demand: bone screws, cannulated instrument shafts, luer fittings and drug delivery device components in 316L, titanium and PEEK. Every medical order ships with full material traceability, and we hold pharmaceutical grade cleanliness expectations the corridor takes for granted, including burr free edges verified under magnification.
Lab Automation & Robotics
Hospital automation at Seton and UCSF plus the sample handling robots of the South SF corridor consume slender precision hardware constantly: dispensing needles, drive shafts under 0.25 inches in diameter, dowel pins and ferrules for liquid handler heads. Length to diameter ratios past 20 to 1 are routine on a guide bushing lathe, so a 3 inch probe shaft comes off straight and concentric to 0.0002 inches TIR. Bio-Rad style analytical instruments add optical mount pins that need sub thousandth positional accuracy, which we deliver with live tooling in the same setup.
Aerospace & Electronics
Daly City engineering contractors ride BART to South Bay primes, with Lockheed Martin Space and NASA Ames reachable by transit, and the parts they spec skew small: contact pins, connector bodies, sensor housings and standoffs for avionics and detector assemblies. Biotech adjacent shops do not always default to flight documentation, so we make it explicit. AS9102 style first articles, mill certs and lot traceability attach to any order flagged aerospace, in 303 stainless, 2024, 7075 and Ti-6Al-4V.
Swiss Machining Answers for Daly City
The details Daly City purchasing teams need up front.
Around Daly City: More Swiss Machining
Daly City Parts, Machined to ±0.0001 in
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