Murray Mold and Die is a job shop in Murray, Kentucky, serving western Kentucky and Tennessee. The twelve person tool and job shop has worked with both CNC milling and turning machines from other machine manufacturers, including a Japanese CNC turning center with an 8" chuck and live tooling. Murray Mold & Die understands what they need in a lathe to be competitive.
In September of 2004, Jerry Duncan, who owns the shop, attended the IMTS show in Chicago and had a chance to see the new Hurco CNC slant-bed turning centers up close. He realized that he needed to expand his shop to stay competitive, but he didn't like the rising cost of machines from manufacturers that he had purchased from in the past. Although he had never purchased a Hurco machine, he liked what he saw in the new Hurco TM Series and decided to place an order for a TM8.
Key Hurco Advantage
Casey is Murray Mold & Tool's resident lathe expert. He’s been using their existing turning center for several years and quickly noticed that the Hurco TM8 was different. After just a month of using the TM8, he was very pleased with the performance and the results. In particular, Casey likes the verification graphics on the control. Being able to see the cuts graphically-- before they are made--leaves no reason to make expensive and time consuming mistakes or “trial runs” on real stock. This feature alone saves both money and time. The part accuracies and cycle times are exactly what he would expect from any high-end CNC slantbed turning center. While most of the programming for milling operations at Murray Mold & Tool is done offline with CAM software, they are currently not using CAM for turning. Casey has been delighted at just how easy it was to learn the intuitive Hurco control.