OPEN HOUSE CLINCHES A DOZEN NEW CITIZEN ORDERS

During the three days of the NC Engineering October Open House, which also marked the company's 30 years of trading and three decades of Citizen CNC sliding head lathes being sold in the UK, more than 100 companies visited the Watford showroom resulting in 12 orders being placed for machines.

Said Managing Director Geoff Bryant: "The levels of interest were high particularly due to growing confidence in the market and the large number of new Citizen CNC sliding head autos that had been introduced through the year. But it was definitely the opportunity to see the new K-Series machine put through its fast cycling routines prior to its launch at the JIMTOF Japanese exhibition that caused most comment."

The new K-Series range represented by the Citizen K12-VII was only at NC Engineering's Technical Centre for four days before being shipped back to Citizen. What held visitors interest was the short cycle time capability linked to the ground breaking price to performance ratio to produce complex mill/turned parts in a single operation.

The 12 mm (½ inch) capacity machine has a 3.7 kW, 15,000 revs/min spindle and 10,000 revs/min subspindle. The machine is able to carry up to six turning tools, has eight end-working tools and seven driven tools.

Considerable interest was also shown in the pre-owned showroom which was well-stocked following high levels of trade-in machines as customers have upgraded to the latest generations of Citizen sliding head machines following the MACH 2004 launches at the NEC in April. Two pre-owned machines were sold directly from the showroom and Geoff Bryant is confident from the level of interest that more orders will be taken over the next few weeks.