We have bought and sold 1,286 fabrication machines. 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 395 fabrication machines listed right now, so we know what the market is paying this month.
Get an offer on your fabrication machine
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 fabrication machine are enough to start.
Why sell your fabrication machine to KD Machinery
Sheet metal work is a sequence rather than a machine, and fabrication shops sell the way they are laid out: something cuts, something bends, something finishes. That is why the name we have handled most across this whole category is Amada, on 105 machines, because Amada builds both ends of that sequence and a shop that buys one tends to buy the other. Trumpf follows on 36, Cincinnati on 34 and Mitsubishi on 33. The practical consequence for you is that these machines are usually worth more together than apart. A cutting machine and the brake that follows it sell to one buyer replacing a line, and split up they go to two buyers who each have to find the other half.
What we buy
Laser cutting machines, waterjets, plasma and flame cutting tables, tube lasers, press brakes, shears, punch presses and turret punches, rolls, ironworkers, notchers and deburring and finishing equipment. Tooling, punches and dies, and complete fabrication lines. One machine, a line, or a whole shop.
What decides what a used fabrication machine is worth
- Whether it goes with the machines either side of it. A cutting machine sold with the brake that follows it reaches a buyer replacing a line, which is a better buyer than either machine finds alone.
- The make and how well it is known here. Amada leads what we have handled at 105 machines, and a well-known name shortens the sale because the buyer already knows what it does.
- Tooling, punches and dies. On a brake or a punch these are a large share of what the package is worth, and sellers routinely leave them out of the conversation entirely.
- The control and the software, including whether nesting or programming licenses transfer with the machine. A machine the buyer cannot program is a machine they cannot use.
- Capacity in the terms the process is bought on: thickness and sheet size for cutting, tonnage and bed length for bending. These place the machine before condition ever comes up.
- The support equipment. Chillers, dust and fume extraction, compressors and filtration were sized for the machine and are expensive to replace separately.
- Condition of the wear items that decide accuracy, which on this equipment means the cutting head or optics, the backgauge, and the ram and bed alignment.
How to sell a fabrication machine
Fabrication equipment sells on a sample and an honest capacity statement:
- Cut or bend a sample at the machine rated capacity and keep the piece. An edge or a bend radius answers more questions than a paragraph.
- Photograph the control showing hours and any enabled software options.
- Lay out the tooling, punches and dies you are including and photograph them together.
- Say plainly what the machine will and will not do at full thickness, because a buyer will test that claim first.
- List the support equipment, and say what is staying, so it does not surface at the end of a negotiation.
Selling a fabrication machine: common questions
Should I sell the cutting machine and the brake together or separately?
Together, in most cases. A shop replacing capacity wants the sequence, not one link in it, and that buyer pays for the convenience of getting it in one move. Separately you are looking for two buyers, each of whom then has to solve the other half themselves. If one machine is much newer than the other there is an argument for splitting, and we will say so.
Our machine is a well-known make but twenty years old. Does the name still help?
It helps more than you might expect. A known name means parts, service and operators who already understand it, and it means the buyer can find comparables rather than guessing. Age sets the price band; the name decides how quickly it moves within that band.
What happens to the racks of tooling when the machine goes?
Include them. Punches, dies and holders were bought for that machine, they fit very little else you own, and to the buyer they remove weeks of sourcing. Held back they are heavy items with a thin market of their own. If a few are specific to work you are keeping, separate those and include the rest.
We are closing the shop, not replacing one machine. What is the best route?
Tell us the whole list before anything is sold, because the order matters. Some of it goes best as a package to one buyer, some sells better individually, and a full facility is often better handled as an auction. What costs money is selling the two or three most attractive machines first and then trying to place what is left.