A view across the showroom before the visitors arrived. From left: OKK VC-X500, HM 6300 S, HMC 500 2D CNC has conducted its first Open House since moving into its 7,500 ft2 Technology Centre in the Tungsten Park industrial estate, Hinckley in 2014. The site boasts a large showroom and areas for service and spares, a customer training school and an engineering centre for the development of turnkey packages, in-depth machining demonstrations and customer acceptance trials. Four multi-axis machines were on show from Japanese manufacturer OKK, an agency 2D CNC earned in April after forming a technical partnership with French machine tool distributor Halbronn Group. OKK machines shown consisted of two vertical 5-axis machines, a VC-X350 (travels of 600 by 430 by 460 mm in X, Y, Z) and VC-X500 (travels of 700 by 850 by 610 mm in X, Y, Z), and two 4-axis horizontal machining centres: HM 6300 S and HMC 500, featuring pallet sizes of 630 and 500 mm, respectively. All had Fanuc controls. The 12-employee company, set up in 2009, is also an agent of Mitsui Seiki, also of Japan, which specialises in vertical and horizontal machining centres and jig grinding machines, and Toyota-owned JTekt group brands Wele (3- and 5-axis machining centres) and Toyoda (grinding machines and machining centres) - Mitsui Seiki is part owned by JTekt, incidentally. A Wele AA1365-50 vertical machining centre (travels of 1,300 by 650 by 600 mm in X, Y, Z) with Nikken table unit (fourth axis) was shown, as well as a Toyoda UH 55 horizontal machining centre (450 mm pallet). The company is also an agent for Reiden machining centres and Fermat horizontal boring machines. Managing director David Holden says that the company works with many tooling and CADCAM suppliers in solving customers’ applications issues. At the Open House, exhibitors included CNC and CADCAM specialists Autodesk, CGTech, j2com and Heidenhain, tooling and workholding providers Walter GB, Kyocera SGS, Nikken, MicroLoc, Brown and Holmes, and coolant filtration provider FSE. Holden adds that there are plans to repeat the Open House next year, perhaps in spring. A relaunch of its website, www.2dcnc.co.uk, was coordinated with the event.