Charles Corner's garage in rural Suffolk, UK, is home to ISO 9001-accredited CBC Precision Engineering and, like Dr Who's 'Tardis', it must be much bigger on the inside than it appears from the outside. How else to explain the 3.7kW XYZ ProtoTRAK manual/three-axis CNC turret mill that sits in the midst of a garage that is also home to a centre lathe, capstan lathe, horizontal milling machine and pedestal drill? What is equally surprising is that a graduate engineer with senior management experience in blue chip manufacturing companies that led eventually to management consultancy and teaching should decide relatively late in life to set up a one-man sub-contracting business.

'I wanted to run my own business and to have something in later life that allowed me to control my own destiny without the responsibility of managing people,' he said, 'One of my beefs in life is that engineering is regarded as a second-choice career, when the reality is that designing and making things is crucial to the economy and the skills involved are applicable to a wide range of business activities.

I wanted to be hands-on and I am convinced it is the challenge that keeps me going, so it concerns me that youngsters are being given a very poor picture of engineering and are missing out on a wide choice of career opportunities.' Corner added that he has no intention of retiring and, having purchased his first CNC machine while in his seventies, he is now contemplating replacing the two manual lathes with a XYZ ProTURN manual/CNC lathe.

The attraction, he explained, is the ProtoTRAK control that has changed his whole way of working, not least because: 'It is very easy to program and allows me to have a 'dry run' before actually cutting metal.' This is relevant to both sub-contract work and to CBC Firepumps, a long-standing business activity that relates to the reconditioning and modification of fire engine pumps.

In addition to UK Fire Authorities and the British Airports Authority, customers as far afield as New Zealand are benefiting from Corner's ability to come up with novel solutions to engineering challenges by combining design flair with hands-on machining expertise.

Typical of his inventiveness is CBC Firepumps' flagship product, the conversion of the high-pressure section of a fire pump to an all-stainless steel configuration.

By inserting a stainless steel element with a patented throat profile into an existing cast aluminium pump body and replacing the existing bronze impeller with a precision stainless steel alternative, the electrolytic action that is the principal cause of pump erosion is eliminated and performance, reliability and life expectancy significantly improved.

Satisfied customers include around half of the UK's regional Fire and Rescue Services.