Buying Used Machine Tools From a Plant Closure

Plant closures put machine tools on the market that would otherwise never be sold, and for a buyer with the right application it is one of the better opportunities in used equipment. It also has more ways to go wrong than most categories.

Wear is the whole question on manual machines

For lathes, mills, grinders and similar:

• Ways. Wear, scoring and whether they have been reground. Way wear determines accuracy and it is expensive to correct.
• Spindle. Runout, bearing noise, endplay. A spindle rebuild is a significant cost.
• Leadscrews and nuts. Backlash tells you about wear and about how it was used.
• General condition. A machine that was kept clean and lubricated looks it, and a machine that was not looks like that too. This is more informative than it sounds.

Bring an indicator and check what you can. Sellers of good machines expect it.

Controls decide the value of a CNC

For CNC machinery the mechanical condition matters and the control matters more, because a machine with an unsupported control is a machine you cannot repair.

Check the control generation, whether the manufacturer still supports it, whether parts and drives are obtainable, and whether anyone locally can service it. A retrofit is possible and it is a major project.

Also check what the machine can actually communicate with. Older controls with obsolete media and no network capability are workable and they are a daily inconvenience.

What comes with it

This is where value is won or lost:

• Tooling and holders, which on a well-equipped machine can be worth a substantial fraction of the machine.
• Chucks, fixtures, vises and rotary tables.
• Manuals, programs and parameter backups. Parameter backups are critical on CNC equipment and frequently lost when a facility closes.
• Spare parts held by the facility.
• Coolant systems, chip conveyors and mist collection.

Buying a machine without its tooling and its parameter backup is buying a project.

See it running under power

Power it up. Run the axes through their travel. Listen. Check for alarms. On a CNC, cut something if the seller allows it, or at minimum run a program in air.

A machine that cannot be demonstrated running should be priced as unknown, because that is what it is.

Rigging and installation

Machine tools are heavy, frequently top-heavy, and often require dismantling to leave a building. Get a rigging quote before committing, and understand what has to come apart.

On the installation side:

• Foundation. Many machines require specific foundations, isolation or levelling.
• Floor loading. Confirm your floor can take it.
• Power. Voltage, phase and the electrical service required.
• Compressed air, coolant and chip handling.
• Access. Getting it into your building is sometimes harder than getting it out of theirs.

Buying from a closure, specifically

There are advantages: the equipment is usually in place and can be seen operating or nearly so, the facility's own people may still be available to answer questions, and pricing reflects a seller who needs the building empty.

There are also risks. Closures move quickly, documentation goes missing, and equipment that was fine last month may have been partially stripped by the time you arrive.

The practical advice: move quickly on inspection, get the parameter backups and manuals in hand at the time of purchase, and agree the removal terms and dates in writing.

How we handle it

Machine tools recovered from the facilities we decommission come out with the tooling, the documentation and the backups where they exist, because that is what makes them worth selling rather than scrapping. When we appraise a facility, that is a category we look at closely — it is frequently worth far more than the owner assumed.