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.
Where San Bernardino Engineering Talent Meets Micro Turning
Start with the institutions. San Bernardino Valley College runs one of the Inland Empire's established machinist training programs, Cal State San Bernardino graduates engineers into the region's logistics and manufacturing employers, and San Bernardino International Airport, built on the former Norton Air Force Base, anchors an aviation maintenance and cargo cluster that includes an Amazon Air regional hub. People who learn to read a feature control frame in this city tend to stay and build things here.
The newest thing they are building is electric. Ryvid assembles its Anthem electric motorcycle in a 70,000 square foot San Bernardino plant, the kind of operation that consumes battery interconnect pins, sensor bodies, brake fittings and swingarm hardware by the thousand. Swiss turning fits that demand profile because the guide bushing supports the bar at the point of cut, so a long thin axle spacer or a 0.10 inch diameter contact pin comes off straight, concentric within 0.0002 inches TIR and finished near Ra 16 microinches with no secondary grinding.
Add the MRO side at SBD and the medical corridor next door in Loma Linda, and the picture is a city that buys small precision parts across three very different industries. RivCut serves all of them from our Northern California shop with no minimum order, bar fed runs from 500 to 100,000 plus pieces and instant online quoting.
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.
Where Swiss Machining Fits in San Bernardino
From prototypes to bar-fed production, this is San Bernardino's Swiss workload.
Aviation MRO & Aerospace
San Bernardino International Airport inherited Norton Air Force Base's long runway and hangar infrastructure, and today its maintenance, cargo and aviation tenants keep aircraft flying rather than building them from scratch. That work chews through turned hardware: clevis pins, fuel system fittings, static port bodies and panel fasteners replaced on inspection schedules. RivCut Swiss turns these from 303 stainless, 2024 and 7075 aluminum and Ti-6Al-4V with material certs and first article reports, so an AOG situation in the Inland Empire is not waiting on an OEM part number.
EV & Vehicle Manufacturing
Ryvid's Anthem production line makes San Bernardino one of the few US cities actually building electric motorcycles, and the EV bill of materials is dense with Swiss lathe geometry. Battery module interconnects, gold plated contact pins, coolant fittings, encoder shafts and torque sensor housings all live under 1.5 inches in diameter with length to diameter ratios past 20 to 1. We run these bar fed in brass, copper alloys, 6061 and 17-4 PH at prototype quantities during design validation and at tens of thousands once a platform locks.
Medical & Research Devices
Loma Linda University Medical Center sits minutes from San Bernardino and anchors a regional health corridor, while Cal State San Bernardino and San Bernardino Valley College feed engineers and technicians into device and instrumentation work across the valley. The micro end of that work is exactly what a sliding headstock lathe exists for: bone screws, luer fittings, cannulated pins and PEEK insulators under 0.5 inches in diameter. RivCut machines them from 316L, titanium and implant adjacent plastics with lot traceability on every shipment.
What San Bernardino Engineers Ask Us
Everything San Bernardino buyers ask before the first PO.
Swiss Machining Beyond San Bernardino
Swiss Precision, Delivered to San Bernardino
From first article to bar-fed production, quoting for San Bernardino starts with one CAD upload.