From Simulation to Innovation: Stoneswood Pushes CNC Boundaries at VUE 2026

The Vericut Users' Exchange (VUE) returned to the UK in September 2026, bringing around 60 attendees to the Silverstone Museum for a day of technical insight and practical CNC machining knowledge sharing. The headline takeaway: for shops willing to invest in their digital workflow, simulation software now reaches well beyond collision checking — and Stoneswood Precision Components proved it.

Simulation beyond collision checking

Gavin Powell, Managing Director of Vericut UK, welcomed delegates before Gavin Bridger, Applications Engineering Manager, opened the technical programme with an interactive look at Vericut 9.6, Vericut 9.7 and beyond. Capabilities already available include Vericut Assistant and bidirectional connectivity with Siemens' Run MyVirtual Machine (RMVM) digital-twin platform.

The Stoneswood workflow

The day's keynote came from Tom Whitbread, Technical Engineer at Cheshire-based Stoneswood Precision Components, part of Hyde Aero Products. The company's programming workflow starts in hyperMILL CAM software, with Icam providing post-processing before Vericut independently verifies the resulting NC code.

"We want to show how we're using Vericut for more than simply checking whether a toolpath is going to collide."

Stoneswood builds its Vericut sessions from the same documentation issued to shop-floor operators — fixture selection, work offsets, tooling assemblies and machine configuration are all checked against the set-up sheet before a job reaches the machine. Simulated cycle times are fed back to planning, informing production scheduling and machine capacity decisions.

Machining beyond the envelope

Using Icam, Stoneswood develops bespoke post-processing functionality, including control of specific C-axis table orientations. Whitbread illustrated the point with a component approximately 2.3 m long machined within a working envelope of around 1.6 m — achieved by controlling table rotations, with Vericut independently simulating the resulting machine behaviour.

When a mill becomes a lathe

The most striking example was interpolation turning on the company's DMGMORI DMC series machining centres. Stoneswood used hyperMILL's general turning functionality to create toolpaths, then developed bespoke post-processing logic in Icam to utilise DMGMORI's CYCLE806 functionality — and built a Vericut environment that accurately reproduces the process.

"It's one thing to know that the machine can perform a particular function. It's another to make sure we can program it, post-process it and independently verify what the machine's going to do before we press start."

The result is a specialist process brought inside the same controlled digital workflow as conventional machining.

"That's the real outcome for us. We haven't just made interpolation turning possible on the machine; we've brought it into a process where we can understand and prove the behaviour before manufacturing begins."

Post-processing and practical takeaways

After lunch and a tour of the Silverstone Museum, Gavin Bridger demonstrated the latest Icam Post V27, which includes AI-powered assistance, regression testing and enhanced debugging tools for post-processor development and validation.

Vericut, established in 1988 and headquartered in Irvine, California, specialises in NC/CNC simulation, verification, optimisation, post-processing and analysis software, and also offers programming and simulation software for composites automated fibre-placement, tape-laying, and drilling/fastening CNC machines.