The COVID‑19 shutdown in April 2020 saw two mechanical‑engineering students, Sean and James Cerven, purchase a Tormach PCNC 440 and turn their parents’ garage into a makeshift shop. They began cutting tiny aluminum parts for local hobbyists, learning the machine’s quirks on the fly.
Word of their hobby spread through a Facebook machining group, and the brothers reached out to Xometry. After a trial part, Xometry accepted them into its Partner Network, opening a stream of orders that grew from a handful of projects to 671 in a single year.
The volume of work forced a move from a cramped garage to a leased 3,000‑sq‑ft space in the same town. There they installed a Matsuura MX‑420 PC10 five‑axis centre, a FANUC RoboDrill, and a Zeiss DuraMax coordinate‑measuring machine, allowing them to meet aerospace and defence tolerances.
A recent contract with a defence contractor required the brothers to machine a titanium RF‑coupler with a 0.01‑mm tolerance. The team ran a 120‑hour test cycle, then shipped the part to the client in California. The contractor praised the precision, citing it as a key factor in advancing the client’s satellite‑ground‑link prototype.
Looking ahead, the Cerven brothers plan to pursue Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification Level 2 to secure future defence contracts. They also intend to add a second CNC line by late 2026, positioning Cerven Solutions as a regional hub for high‑precision manufacturing.