We have bought and sold 234 press brakes, build years 1973 to 2026. That is our own record, not a catalog listing — so when we quote your machine, we are pricing something we have traded before.
We have 75 press brakes listed right now, so we know what the market is paying this month.
Get an offer on your press brake
Tell us what you have and how to reach you, and we will come back with a route and a number — usually the same day. The make and model of your press brake are enough to start.
Why sell your press brake to KD Machinery
Tonnage and bed length are what a brake is, and 44 of ours have a 10 foot bed with another 39 at 12 feet. Amada at 55 machines and Accurpress at 41 are the names we handle most, with Cincinnati at 26. What sellers routinely leave out of the conversation is the tooling: a rack of punches and dies is a large part of what a brake is worth and it is almost never mentioned until after the offer, by which point it is too late to have been paid for.
What we buy
Hydraulic and electric press brakes, CNC and manual, two axis through eight axis backgauges, tandem pairs, and machines with crowning and angle measurement. Older mechanical brakes as well as current CNC machines. A single brake, a brake and shear together, or a whole fabrication shop.
What decides what a used press brake is worth
- Tonnage and bed length. These two put the machine in its class before anything else is discussed.
- The tooling. Punches, dies, holders, gooseneck and hemming tooling, and what style they are. Inventory it and photograph the rack, because unlisted tooling is unpaid-for tooling.
- The backgauge and how many axes it has, and whether it still repeats to what the control says it does.
- Crowning, whether it is manual or CNC, and any angle measurement system.
- Ram stroke and open height. 8 inch is the commonest stroke on ours, on 46 machines, and it decides what box heights the brake can form.
- Control generation and whether it still holds programs, plus light curtains and the guarding, which a buyer must have to run it legally.
- Cylinder and seal condition, and whether the ram drifts when it is left under pressure.
How to sell a press brake
A brake sells on accuracy and on what comes with it. Before it is listed:
- Inventory the tooling and photograph it laid out. This is the single most profitable hour you will spend on the sale.
- Bend a test piece and measure the angle along the length, then say what you measured.
- Check whether the ram drifts overnight and say so honestly. A buyer finds this out in the first week regardless.
- Photograph the backgauge, the control screen with a program loaded, and the guarding.
- Note the year, or say plainly that it is not known. A great many good brakes have no plate left and buyers accept that.
Selling a press brake: common questions
We have racks of punches and dies. Are they actually worth anything?
Often a great deal, and it is the most commonly wasted value in a fabrication sale. Tooling sold with the brake it was bought for is worth far more than the same tooling on a pallet, because the buyer gets a machine that can form parts on arrival. Inventory it before you talk to anyone.
Our brake is from the nineties and has no CNC. Is it sellable?
Yes. A large part of the brake book we have traded is older machines, and there are shops that specifically want a simple, heavy, mechanically sound brake they can maintain themselves. Age is not what kills a brake sale; a drifting ram, missing guarding and no tooling are.
The backgauge no longer repeats. How much does that cost me?
Less than you fear if you say so, and a lot if you do not. Backgauge repeatability is a known, priceable repair and buyers factor it in without much drama. What they do not forgive is finding it after delivery, and that conversation costs more than the repair ever would.
Can you take the brake and the shear together?
Yes, and they are usually worth more as a pair. Shops buying fabrication capacity want the whole line rather than one machine, and a brake and shear that have worked together move on one removal plan instead of two.