NS CNC designs and manufactures precision desktop CNC machines in Surrey, BC, near Vancouver. We started in jewelry. We stayed because the work demands it.
Sixteen machines across roughly 25 years, all designed and built in one place — now running in research labs, production shops, and jewelry studios on multiple continents.
What NS CNC is, in four lines — before the story of how it got here.
Designed, assembled, and calibrated in one facility near Vancouver — not sourced and rebadged.
Benchtop mills with full 5-axis motion and sub-micron resolution, in a footprint that fits a bench.
Axis geometry, spindle runout, and positional accuracy checked to specification on every machine.
The same mills that cut jewelry wax fabricate NMR microcoils, microfluidic chips, and lab sensors.
NS CNC was founded in the 1990s by an artist with an engineering background who needed tools that didn't exist. Fine jewelry at the level he required meant carving wax by hand — slow, imprecise, and impossible to scale. The solution was to build a better machine.
The first NS CNC mills were 3- and 4-axis — a significant improvement over hand carving, but still limited. Complex designs (depth, undercuts, compound curves) needed a fifth axis. In 2009 the Mira 1 shipped: the first 5-axis desktop CNC mill built for jewelry wax modeling.
Jewelers adopted it immediately — and before long, researchers and manufacturers found the same accuracy solved problems of their own.
NS CNC has only ever built one kind of thing: a small machine that holds a tight number across a long program. Jewelers needed it for compound curves and undercuts. Researchers needed it to fabricate features invisible to the eye. The requirement was identical, so the same bench served both.
That's how a company that started in fine jewelry ended up with machines in research institutions on multiple continents — and cited in peer-reviewed work well beyond it.
See where they're runningThe Mira started in jewelry. The same properties that made it exceptional there made it useful in fields well beyond it.
Universities found the same sub-micron accuracy and stability suited fabricating NMR microcoils and laboratory sensors. The machines now run in research institutions on multiple continents.
Science & publicationsMicrofluidic chips and features at scales invisible to the eye, made possible by accuracy that holds across a long program.
MicromachiningThe trade it was built for. 5-axis wax modeling for rings, settings, and fine detail — the compound curves and undercuts hand carving and 3-axis mills can't reach.
Jewelry workflowIn 2009, the first 5-axis machine was ready to ship and needed a name. Technical descriptors, acronyms, and power words were all considered and rejected. The machine wasn't a statement of power. It was a tool for making something beautiful.
The name is short for "miraculous" — the reaction the first machine drew from jewelers who had only ever carved wax by hand. Miraculous → Mira.
It is also a variable star in the constellation Cetus. The overlap was a coincidence, but not an unwelcome one.
Customers around the world have since given their machines their own names — Miranda, Mirochka, Miroslava, Maria, Meir. We consider that the best possible feedback.
Every NS CNC machine is engineered, assembled, and verified under one roof in Surrey, BC — not sourced from a catalog and rebadged.
Design, machining, assembly, and calibration happen in the same building, with the same people. The product development that sets the standard and the production that meets it are not separate companies — they are the same bench.
That's also why support comes straight from the people who built the machine. Nothing is handed off to a distributor in between.
Machines are assembled and run in-house — the same units that go to customers are tested on the floor first.
A small team of designers, machinists, and engineers who build the machines and answer the phone when you call.
Every machine runs the same pre-shipment sequence — mechanical, electronic, and motion — using the tools and procedures from our own product development.
Sixteen machines across roughly 25 years. Each generation built on the one before it.
First NS CNC mill — 4-axis with manual 5th axis
First commercially sold machine
First 5-axis desktop CNC mill for jewelry
Waterproofing, refined design
First multi-purpose mill / lathe hybrid
Enclosed work area
First machine with integrated CAM software
Fully enclosed work area; expanded material range
Smart Rotary Heads; redesigned interface
5-axis with 12-tool automatic tool changer
New control system, redesigned motion components
Heavy-duty 5-axis for metals and composites
3 & 4-axis line for metal milling
9th generation Mira
Redesigned frame; three E3000 spindle options; quick-release workholding
5-axis heavy-duty · 15-tool ATC · dual coolant
Mira 6S, Mira J9, Elara 2, and Lathe 3 — each engineered for a different class of work, all built to the same standard.
Research laboratories and jewelry workshops running NS CNC machines today — and what they make with them.
Questions about a machine, an application, or a quote — direct to the team in Surrey.
