Used Herkules Machines We Buy

Who Makes Herkules Machines

Herkules machines are built by Maschinenfabrik Herkules, a family-owned German company that calls itself the world-leading specialist for roll machining. Franz Thoma founded it together with Alfred Schütte on May 11, 1911, and its head office has been in Siegen, North Rhine-Westphalia, ever since. The Thoma family still runs it: Maximilian Thoma took over in December 2020 as the fourth generation.

The Siegen plant employs around 355 people and builds roll grinding machines and lathes in 15,459 m² of production and assembly halls, from design through mechanical and electrical assembly. It also runs its own roll shop, where five roll grinders and a texturing machine process customers' rolls and where Herkules does its research and development.

Where Herkules Machines Are Built

Herkules lists production companies in Siegen, in Meuselwitz in Thuringia, and in Ford City, Pennsylvania. At Meuselwitz, 300 employees design and build roll grinders, lathes and roll shop equipment, and the same works takes contract jobs in sheet metal forming, welding, turning, milling and gear cutting. Herkules USA in Ford City has around 115 employees designing and producing Herkules grinding and turning machines in 7,525 m² (81,000 ft²) of air-conditioned halls, and it also modernizes machines on the American continent.

Ford City builds complete machines, not only parts. Herkules says the WS 1100 × 7000 CNC Monolith roll grinder Nucor bought for its plant in Tuscaloosa, Alabama was built and assembled entirely by its Ford City specialists. A Herkules in a North American mill may therefore be German-built or Pennsylvania-built, and the plate and serial number settle which.

Herkules Dates on the HerkulesGroup Chronicle

The Herkules entries on the chronicle published by the HerkulesGroup, plus the first roll shop from Herkules's own roll shop page:

The chronicle's Herkules entries stop at 2020. The 1984 roll shop is from Herkules's roll shop page, not the chronicle.

Herkules Lines and Controls

Herkules's product menu runs from roll grinders, built with a traversing grinding saddle, as table-top machines with a travelling workpiece, or as a compact machining center, through NWD-Series and P-Series heavy-duty lathes and special-purpose machines such as PTM-Series texturing machines, groove grinders, notch milling machines and shear knife grinders, to complete roll shops with loaders, dechockers, chock tilters and roll transfer cars.

Herkules rates its traversing-saddle roll grinders for workpieces up to 300 t and 3,000 mm in diameter, and its NWD heavy-duty lathes for workpieces up to 3,000 mm in diameter and 30,000 mm long. The largest roll turning lathe it describes, delivered to Gontermann-Peipers in Germany, takes rolls of up to 400 tons.

Herkules writes its own machine controls. The current roll grinder control, the KP 10, is touch-operated and PC-based, and Herkules counts more than 1,000 of its controls in service.

Which Herkules Records Are Maschinenfabrik Herkules

Not every machine filed under the Herkules name in our catalog is necessarily from the Siegen roll-machining maker. Herkules's own product pages list roll grinders, lathes, special-purpose roll machines and roll shop equipment, and no bending rolls or lifting equipment. Many designations on our Herkules records do follow the maker's naming. Its roll grinders carry WS designations, such as the WS 250 Monolith and the WS 1100, its chronicle names the HWD 850 lathe and the HDK 1500 roll lathe, and its heavy lathe line is the NWD-Series. So the WS records match the maker's roll-grinder naming, and the WD, WDK and NWDK records sit close to its lathe names.

The records we file as bending rolls, which carry BO-prefixed designations, and the ones filed as lifting equipment use names that appear on none of the Herkules pages we read. For those, the data plate, not our catalog label, settles who built the machine. Herkules and WaldrichSiegen belong to the same HerkulesGroup, but WaldrichSiegen machines have their own hub at /brands/waldrichsiegen/.

Roll Grinder or Heavy Lathe: What We Look At

On a Herkules roll grinder, capacity and measuring come first: the largest roll diameter, length and weight it takes, whether it has the Monolith bed that Herkules offers as an option on all its grinders, and what measuring and testing it carries. The WS 1100 × 7000 that Nucor bought, for example, came with a C-frame measuring device plus eddy current and ultrasonic testing, and equipment like that adds to what a grinder is worth.

On an NWD-Series or other heavy Herkules lathe, the swing, the length between centers, the steady rests and any milling head count most. Then the control: the original Herkules control, a later Herkules or KPM modernization, or another supplier's retrofit. Loaders, chock changers or other roll shop equipment that leave with the machine belong on the list too, together with a photo of the foundation and the way out of the bay.

Herkules and KPM Service Versus Selling

Herkules backs its machines with assembly and commissioning, operator and maintenance training, maintenance and service contracts, spare parts that its engineering office specifies before quoting, repairs, and a hotline staffed around the clock. In North America, KPM is the group's service company and also modernizes machine tools, and Herkules USA in Ford City supplies service and spare parts.

For a grinder you mean to keep, that is the support to call. For one the roll shop no longer needs, we buy it outright, and a record of Herkules or KPM service work strengthens the offer.

What Sits in the Herkules Book Right Now

Twenty-four listings carry the Herkules nameplate in this hub, counted exactly, and Herkules is the only brand in it. Thirteen of the 24 are filed under Metal Cutting, the catalog's broad umbrella heading rather than a machine type, so those thirteen stay described as filed, not as one kind of machine. The other 11 sit in six narrower categories: CNC Bending Rolls at 3, then CNC Grinding Machines, CNC Lathes and CNC Lifting Equipment at 2 each, with a single CNC Drilling and Tapping Center and one CNC Miscellaneous Machine. That is the complete list, not a top few. Across those 24 listings there are 23 distinct model designations, so almost every unit here is a one-off. There is no shelf of identical machines to price yours against, so each gets scoped on its own plate data rather than on a comparable sitting beside it. Of the listings that carry a build year, the span runs from 1988 to 2021; 10 of the 24 carry none at all.

Bending Rolls, Grinders, Lathes and Lifting Equipment

The six narrower categories tell a seller whether their machine belongs here, and the spread is wide on purpose. CNC Bending Rolls is the largest of them at 3 of 24. CNC Grinding Machines, CNC Lathes and CNC Lifting Equipment each sit at 2, and there is one CNC Drilling and Tapping Center plus one CNC Miscellaneous Machine. That is how our records are filed, not what the maker builds: Maschinenfabrik Herkules makes roll grinders, lathes and roll shop equipment, so a bending roll or lifting unit filed here may carry the name without that maker behind it. Either way a bending roll lands on this page and gets quoted on the same terms; a lifting unit does not, because MTE does not buy lifting equipment. If yours is a grinder, /machine-type/cnc-grinding-machines/ shows the rest of that category. The lathe side is at /machine-type/cnc-lathes/, and the single drilling and tapping unit sits at /machine-type/cnc-drilling-tapping-centers/ with five other brands at one listing each. Bending rolls and the miscellaneous machine have no separate hub on this site, so this page describes them.

Herkules Model Designations We See

BO231-K is the only designation that repeats in this hub, at 2 of 24. Every other machine carries its own, which is why the model string off the data plate is the first thing we ask for. What the record holds: BO 231 K, BO 230 K/1, BO232K, B0230K2 and B0231K ID, then WS600/450X5500, WS450-8LX3500, WS-300 and WSE 180 x 1500, then WD300LE and WDK 850L, NWDK and NWDK 600 LE X 7000 CNC, HK1100/2400 and HK600/3000, BR and BR 40 - Mk4, P100 and P100WSB450X15000/13000, plus UB12 and A0040. Counted off that list, designations beginning with BO or B0 account for 7 of the 24, the largest cluster here. We quote those strings exactly as stamped. The catalog decodes none of them; where the maker's own pages use the same prefix, as WS does on Herkules roll grinders, the section above says so, and we read no units into the figures. What they do tell you is that capacity is usually baked into the designation itself, so a clear photo of the plate carries most of a first conversation.

What Moves the Number on a Used Herkules

Jason Puuri weighs these himself rather than running a formula. What he looks at: model and serial off the data plate, build year, control make and generation, the capacity figures stamped into the designation, bed and way wear, spindle or roll condition, whether the machine still holds tolerance, what tooling and steady rests come with it, and whether it is still under power. Condition and control settle more than age does. Build year is missing on 10 of the 24 records in this hub, which is exactly why a data plate photo matters more on a Herkules than on a late-model machining center: the plate answers in one shot what the record does not. Once those details are in hand, a transparent offer typically comes back within 24 to 48 hours, and a web form request gets a reply inside one to two business days. Your machine sets the number rather than a category average, which is why we do not publish one.

Have This Ready, and How It Comes Off the Floor

Have this ready before you call and the first conversation goes quickly: model and serial off the data plate, build year, control make and generation, the capacity figures, a tooling list, and whether the machine is still under power. Photos are not required, but three speed everything up: the data plate, the control screen, and one wide shot showing how the machine sits in the building. That wide shot earns more on a Herkules than on a typical machining center. There are heavy machines in this book, with 3 bending rolls among the 24 and several designations carrying long capacity strings, so the rigging plan gets built off the real footprint and access route rather than a catalog spec. Getting that right up front keeps a pickup date from slipping. From there, MTE can arrange rigging, crating, freight and the pickup in all 50 states.

Selling a Herkules Outright, and Clearing the Rest of the Floor

MTE purchases equipment outright. We are not a broker, an auction platform or a listing service, and we do not take machines on consignment. That means no listing, no broker, and no waiting on a third party. MTE is an affiliate of Superior Machine Tools, based in Lansing, Michigan, buying nationwide, and in used CNC equipment since 2012. Condition does not disqualify a machine: running production, sitting idle, or needing work all get evaluated the same way. If the Herkules is one of several machines leaving the floor, the rest ride the same quote and pickup schedule, including nameplates we buy and hold elsewhere on this site, Mazak, Okuma, Doosan and DMG MORI among them. Each still gets scoped on its own model, control and condition rather than lumped into one blanket price. Plate and sheet rolling machines are on our buy list too, at /machine-type/cnc-rolling-mills/, whatever name the plate carries; the 3 filed here as bending rolls are a buying record, not a claim about what Maschinenfabrik Herkules builds.