Hurco Open House bags £750,000

"The orders sealed a reasonable trading year, during which we sold nearly 200 machines, which was a much better result than we were expecting earlier in the year," commented Dave Waghorn, managing director. He said that there has been a trend for Hurco over the past 12 months towards supplying larger, higher technology machines, notably 5-axis machining centres, particularly to aerospace firms. A new 5-axis model, the VMX42U with integral trunnion table (pictured), was launched, but it is the recently introduced VMX-SR series of swivelling-head, 5-axis machines with horizontal rotary table that is proving more popular lately, says the company. Orders for two VMX42SRs were placed at the Open House, bringing the total for the year to nine. At the December event, visitors witnessed a demonstration that showed how complex 3D parts can be programmed in their entirety, using the conversational menu and harnessing the power of the 'swept surface' feature in WinMax, with its automatic blending capability. Most engineers would have assumed the program had been prepared using a CADCAM system and downloaded to the machine as NC code, it is suggested.