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.
What Olathe Actually Buys on a Swiss Lathe
Start with the part types, because in Olathe they cluster tightly. Garmin runs its global headquarters here, and GPS and avionics hardware lives or dies on small turned electronics components: machined contact pins under 0.062 inches in diameter, coaxial connector bodies with concentricity requirements in the tenths, antenna ferrules and turned standoffs that hold board stacks flat. Add the defense electronics side of the Kansas City metro, with Honeywell FM&T operating nearby, and you get the same pin and housing geometry with tighter documentation attached.
The second cluster is rougher duty. Olathe sits on a major BNSF rail hub, and rail, intermodal and heavy equipment maintenance consume valve spools, gauge pins, grease fittings and wear bushings in 4140, 17-4 PH and bronze. New Century AirCenter, the former Naval Air Station Olathe just southwest of town, keeps aviation MRO and light industrial tenants in the mix as well, and their replacement hardware is classic Swiss geometry: slender, round, concentric and needed on a schedule.
Swiss turning fits both clusters for the same mechanical reason. The guide bushing supports the bar at the point of cut, so a 20:1 length-to-diameter shaft comes off straight, and live tooling plus a sub-spindle finish cross-holes, flats and back-end features in one setup. One operation, one inspection, parts that match from piece 1 to piece 50,000.
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.
The Parts Olathe Industries Order Most
A sector-by-sector look at Olathe Swiss turning demand.
GPS, Avionics & Electronics
Garmin's Olathe headquarters anchors one of the densest GPS and avionics engineering populations in the country, and the supplier base around it buys turned interconnect hardware constantly. Machined contact pins, coaxial connector bodies, SMA-style ferrules and EMI shield standoffs all run on our sliding headstock lathes from brass, beryllium copper, phosphor bronze and 303 stainless. Diameters hold ±0.0001 inches and surfaces finish near Ra 16 microinches as machined, which matters when a pin has to plate cleanly and seat in a connector shell thousands of times.
Defense & National Security Supply
Defense electronics work in the Kansas City metro, with Honeywell FM&T a short drive from Olathe, sets a documentation bar that most job shops cannot clear. RivCut Swiss turns dowel pins, precision shafts, hermetic sensor housings and fastener specials from 17-4 PH, 316L and Ti-6Al-4V with full material traceability, first article inspection reports and mill certs on every lot. New Century AirCenter's aviation tenants pull from the same catalog: clevis pins, fuel fittings and bushings machined to print with the paperwork attached, not promised.
Rail, Heavy Equipment & Animal Health
BNSF's rail hub and the intermodal traffic it pulls through Johnson County keep maintenance shops replacing small precision components on hard deadlines: valve spools, hydraulic fittings, gauge pins and wear bushings in 4140 and bronze. Olathe also sits inside the KC Animal Health Corridor, and veterinary device and lab instrumentation firms in the corridor order the micro end of our range, luer fittings, cannulated pins and dosing components in 316L and PEEK under 0.5 inches in diameter. We machine both from a print, or from a worn sample and a sketch when the OEM part number is dead.
Olathe Buyer FAQ
Straight answers on Swiss work shipped to Olathe.
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