Used Gleason Gear Machines We Buy

Who Makes Gleason Machines

Gleason machines come from Gleason Corporation of Rochester, New York. William Gleason opened a one-room shop there in 1865, making metalworking tools along with turning and planing machines, and in 1874 he invented the first bevel gear planer, the machine that set the company on its path into gears. He incorporated The Gleason Works as a New York State corporation in 1903, and in 1984 The Gleason Works was restructured into Gleason Corporation.

Gleason now describes itself as the largest gear systems provider worldwide, with over 2,400 employees. Its products are built around one job: making high-precision gears, geared shafts and worm-type parts, external or internal, in metal or plastic.

Where Gleason Builds Its Machines Today

Gleason's list of operations runs from The Gleason Works in Rochester to Gleason-Pfauter Maschinenfabrik in Ludwigsburg, Germany, Gleason Switzerland in Studen, Gleason Works India in Bangalore, Gleason Gear Technology in Suzhou, China, and Gleason-Saikuni in Niigata, Japan. Gleason says the Suzhou plant builds gear machines and tools, and that the Studen site opened in 2018 as a technology and production center for automotive gear work.

The Genesis line, introduced in 2006, is built in several locations around the world, so the plant behind a used Genesis can vary from one machine to the next. Gear inspection and tooling sit in separate US companies: Gleason Metrology Systems in Dayton, Ohio, and Gleason Cutting Tools in Loves Park, Illinois.

Gleason Milestones That Help Date a Machine

Dates from Gleason's own Milestones in Gear Technology page, which runs to 2024. The badge on a machine, or the family it belongs to, places it on this timeline:

Every year is from Gleason's milestones page. It dates the company, its acquisitions and its machine families, not individual machines, so the serial number and build year on the plate still date the one you own.

Pfauter, Hurth and Other Names Under the Gleason Roof

Several gear machine builders now sit inside Gleason, and their names still turn up on data plates. Hermann Pfauter patented the gear hobbing process in 1900 and founded his own company to build hobbing machines. Hermann Pfauter Werkzeugmaschinen joined Gleason in 1997, which is how Gleason came to sell cylindrical gear machines alongside its bevel machines, and the Ludwigsburg plant still carries the Gleason-Pfauter name.

Carl Hurth's Munich company, founded in 1896, became part of Gleason in 1995 and brought threaded wheel grinding, honing and shaving with it. M&M Metrology Systems joined in 2005 and was renamed Gleason Metrology Systems, Saikuni Machinery of Niigata, a rack machine specialist, joined in 2013, and Gleason bought Faessler's gear honing business in 2019. A Pfauter hobber, a Hurth shaver or an M&M gear checker belongs to the Gleason family, and we quote it the same way.

Bevel Machines and Cylindrical Machines

Gleason splits its machines into two halves. On the bevel side, Phoenix is the name on both the cutting machines, from the Phoenix 100C for robotic and power-tool gears up to the Phoenix 1000HC for large bevel gears, and the grinders, from the Phoenix 280G for automotive and small-truck gears to the Phoenix 800G for large gears and pinions. Gleason first showed the Phoenix in 1988 and calls it a radical departure from any gear cutting or grinding machine built before it.

On the cylindrical side, Genesis covers vertical hobbing (the Genesis 130H/210H and 400H) and threaded wheel grinding (the Genesis GX), the P-Series covers universal hobbing for mid-size gears, and the Titan Series hobs and grinds large gears. Gleason's shapers run from the compact GP Series, for gears up to 300 mm, to P Series shapers for gears up to 3,200 mm, and its P2000G to P6000G machines profile-grind large gears.

Gleason Line Names and What They Cut

The names on Gleason's current machine pages, and the work Gleason builds each line for:

Names and descriptions are from Gleason's current machine pages. Older numbered Gleason machines are not on those pages, so send the number from the plate.

Gleason Upgrades That Change a Machine's Value

Gleason keeps older machines in its modernization program, and that shows up in what a used one is worth. It offers complete remanufacture, in which the machine goes back to Gleason to be fully taken apart and rebuilt, and it publishes modernization packages for the P60 hobber, the Phoenix 125GH/200GH hobbing machines, the Phoenix 175HC and 450HC bevel cutters and the P800G to P3000G grinders. If yours has been remanufactured, modernized or given a CNC retrofit, tell us, because it is a different machine from one that left the factory untouched.

Gleason's own service request asks for the model, the serial number, which it says is found at the machine's main switch, the year of manufacture and the type of control, listing Bosch, FANUC, NUM and Siemens. Those are the same details that place a used Gleason for us.

Gleason Service and Remanufacturing, or Selling Outright

In 2007 Gleason merged its local service organizations into one network, Gleason Global Services, which it put at nearly 300 service professionals worldwide. Its service programs climb through three preventive maintenance levels, Basic, Silver and Gold, and it runs a separate spindle service. That route makes sense for a Gleason you plan to keep cutting gears. For one that has finished its work in your shop, we buy it outright, and a Gleason service report or a record of a rebuild is worth sending along with the plate details.

What Sits in the Gleason Listings Right Now

The Gleason hub runs 606 listings, and the shape of it is lopsided in a useful way. 433 of them sit under CNC Gear Machinery and another 149 under Metal Cutting, so those two buckets are 582 of the 606. Everything else is a thin tail: CNC Grinding Machines at 7, CNC Miscellaneous Machines at 7, CNC Tool and Cutter Grinders at 3, CNC Spline Cutting Machines at 2, then five categories holding a single listing each, namely CNC Tooling and Accessories, CNC Band Saws, CNC Miscellaneous MRO, Other Machinery, and CNC Drilling and Tapping Centers. Read that tail as range, not depth. Gleason is not one of the ten largest brands in our catalog and we will not pretend otherwise. What this hub carries is 378 distinct Gleason models, a wider spread than the listing count suggests, and breadth is what matters when you are placing an unusual machine.

Gleason Model Families We See Most

PHOENIX is the largest single model family here at 41 listings, then GP at 17 and SIGMA at 12. After that the counts fall off quickly. 125GH, 516 and 275 each show 10, PENTAC 9, and 116 shows 8. TAG, 175HC, 104, 608, 463 and 600 all sit at 6, while PFAUTER, G320, GP200S, 450HC and FSP each appear 5 times. PFAUTER here marks machines from Hermann Pfauter, the German hobbing-machine builder that joined Gleason in 1997, so they sit in this hub with the other Gleason machines. The honest read is that nothing dominates. 41 Phoenix listings out of 606 means the book is spread across 378 distinct models. 109 model families carry two or more listings, and the rest of the model numbers appear exactly once. Most Gleason model numbers show up here once or twice rather than by the dozen, so an odd number on your data plate is normal traffic for us.

Older and Numbered Gleason Machines Still Count

A lot of Gleason iron predates CNC controls, and we buy it on the same terms as anything current. The numbered machines are genuinely here: 516 at 10 listings, 116 at 8, then 608, 104, 463, 600, 2A and 24A at 6 each, and 102, 106, 502, 503, 512, 514, 609 and 641 at 5 each. 17A, 519, 606 and 726 each show 4, and 13A shows 3. Machines listed by a plain No. designation turn up as well. The Metal Cutting category, holding 149 of the 606 listings, is where much of that older equipment lands. One caution on age, because a catalog is easy to misread: only 280 of the 606 listings carry a recorded build year, and the listings that do run from 1970 to 2025. A missing year in the record is not a reason we would pass on a machine. Send the plate and we will place it.

What Determines the Offer on a Used Gleason

A gear machine is not scoped the way a machining center is. Runtime matters, but capacity and the cutter and workholding package carry more weight on a Gleason than spindle hours alone. Jason Puuri looks at the model, the year, the condition, the control type, and the max gear diameter capacity, then weighs demand for that machine from automotive, aerospace and power transmission shops. He does the judging himself rather than running a formula. Tooling is a real line item, not an afterthought. PENTAC cutter-system machines come through this hub at 9 listings, and CNC Tooling and Accessories appears as its own category above, so cutter heads, change gears and index plates get scoped alongside the iron rather than assumed in. If a machine is missing its cutter package or its change gears, say so on the first call. That moves the number less than a wrong assumption found at pickup.

Have This Ready Before You Call

The fastest route to a number is the data plate. Send the Gleason model and serial, the build year, the control type, and the max gear diameter capacity. Then list what travels with the machine: the cutter and workholding package, change gears, index plates, fixtures, and any inspection tooling. Tell us whether it is still holding tolerance, still under power, or has been sitting idle. Photos are not required, but one shot of the data plate, the control, and the cutter head gets a first number back faster than a written description does. The spread of Gleason model numbers is why the plate matters. With 378 distinct Gleason models in the hub and 109 families carrying two or more listings, a plate reading places your machine in seconds, where a description leaves us guessing between a 516 and a 519. Quotes on a Gleason typically come back within 24 to 48 hours of that.

Selling to MTE Instead of Trading In or Listing

MTE is a direct buyer. We are not a broker, a listing service, or an auction platform, so there is no listing and no waiting while somebody hunts up a third-party buyer. Machine Tool Exchange is an affiliate of Superior Machine and Tool, buying and selling used CNC equipment since 2012, which is where the gear machine knowledge comes from. We can arrange rigging, crating and freight. We can arrange the pickup, and we buy in all 50 states, in any condition, including machines sitting idle or needing work. Gleason itself runs no general buyback program. Some dealers will discuss trade-in, but that is tied to buying a new machine and terms vary. If you just want the machine off the floor and the deal done, that is the transaction we do. Call 517-514-5190 or use the form at /sell-your-cnc-machine/.