Used Starrag Machines We Buy

Who Makes Starrag Machines

Starrag is a machine tool builder headquartered in Rorschacherberg, Switzerland, making high-precision machines for milling, turning, boring and grinding. Its history page starts the company in 1897, as the Henri Levy Mechanische Werkstatt in Rorschacherberg, which made threading machines for the textile industry. The first RIGID milling machine, with a closed frame, followed in 1920, and Starrag says it delivered the world's first 5-axis milling machine in 1959.

Starrag operates manufacturing plants in Switzerland, Germany, France, the UK and India. Its organization page now lists a Division CEO for Starrag and refers readers to www.starragtornos.com for the board.

Every listing on this hub is filed under Starrag, including HEC machines, which Starrag now sells under the Heckert name, the CWK range they replaced, and older machines badged RIGID. Starrag's history explains the single name: in 1998 it took over Heckert in Chemnitz and replaced the La Rigide and Rigid names with the single name STARRAG.

When Each Brand Joined Starrag

The brand and name changes on Starrag's own history page, in order:

Starrag's history page runs to 2015. Its company profile today names Berthiez, Bumotec, Dörries, Droop+Rein, Ecospeed, Heckert, SIP, Starrag and TTL as product ranges under the umbrella brand Starrag.

From ZT and CWK to STC and HEC

The model names in our Starrag listings follow Starrag's own generations. In 2001 Starrag launched its first platform machines: the STC 1000 replaced the former ZT range, and the HEC 1000 took the place of the CWK range of heavy-duty machining centers. So the ZT name belongs to designs from before 2001. CWK machines are a different case: several in our listings carry build years after 2001.

Both newer names live on. Starrag's STC Series today runs from the STC 800 simultaneous 5-axis mill-turn center through 5-axis machines up to the STC 1600 and 6-axis machines up to the STC 1800. The current Heckert H Series of 4-axis horizontals covers pallet sizes from 500 mm to 1,800 mm: the compact H70, H80, H90 and H100 and the large HEC 1250, HEC 1600 and HEC 1800. The HEC 500D and HEC 800 in our listings are sizes that lineup does not show, so on those we work from the plate and the machine itself.

Heads, Spindles and Changers: Starrag-Specific Checks

On a Starrag STC, start with the head. Starrag calls the 1D nodding head the right choice in most cases and offers a 2D head, combining A- and C-axes, for large structural parts and impellers. It builds motor spindles up to 120 kW and gear-driven spindles up to 53 kW, and its angle heads, which casings and gearboxes often need, can be loaded from the tool magazine automatically.

On a Heckert horizontal, note the pallet size, the magazine type (tower, chain or toothed belt) and whether the tool changer is the lightweight design for tools up to 10 kg or the heavy-duty one for tools up to 50 kg. Those details separate two machines that share a family name, so put them in your first message to us.

Starrag Service and Retrofit, or Selling Outright

Starrag USA, Inc. has its North American headquarters in Hebron, Kentucky, with a sales office in Wichita, Kansas, and it offers sales, service support and spare parts from a parts warehouse close to that office. Starrag also sells inspection and maintenance packages, overhauls motor spindles as the original builder, and runs its own retrofit department to bring older machines up to current standards. That route suits a Starrag you mean to keep.

For one you want off the floor, we buy it outright. Tell us about any Starrag spindle overhaul or retrofit when you send the details, because work done by the builder is part of what we price.

What Is in the Starrag Listings We Hold

This hub holds 43 Starrag listings, and the category split is worth reading before you assume what a Starrag search returns. Ten sit under the general Metal Cutting heading, nine are CNC horizontal machining centers and eight are CNC vertical machining centers. Six are CNC boring mills and four are CNC 5-axis machining centers. The rest is thin and specific: two CNC gantry and portal mills, plus one each of a CNC vertical turret lathe, a CNC horizontal boring mill, a CNC vertical boring mill and a CNC turning center. Those ten buckets account for every listing, and no single category takes a majority. Across the 43 listings there are 35 distinct models, so this is a wide book rather than the same machine repeated in quantity. Twenty-nine listings record a production year, and those run from 1978 through 2020. That spread is why two Starrag conversations rarely look alike.

STC, HEC and CWK: The Model Families We See Most

Three model families come up more often than any others. STC appears on eight listings, HEC on seven and CWK on six. ZT accounts for three and the 2VC2800 designation for two. Below those five, every family is a single listing. The individual models a searcher actually types show up here: HEC 500D on three listings, plus HEC 800, HEC 400 F and HEC 500 Athletic, STC-800X and STC 800 X, STC 630-D, CWK 400D and CWK 400D Dynamic, CWK 500D and CWK 800, ZT 800/110 and ZT 800/130, and one-off entries including ZS 500-130, SX 051 B, NX-255, HX-151/24, RIGID 144, ECOSPEED, ECOLINER, LX, NB and NMH-200. HEC is a Heckert designation, and Starrag's history says the HEC 1000 replaced the CWK range in 2001; both are carried under the Starrag nameplate, which our own catalog shows in a listing titled Brand Type STARRAGHECKERT HEC 500D. If the data plate reads Heckert and the paperwork reads Starrag, both describe the same machine to us.

What Determines the Offer on a Used Starrag

Control type is the first thing we ask about on a Starrag. Siemens Sinumerik and Heidenhain TNC are the two we see, and which one sits on the machine changes who wants it. After that comes the model and its size class, the build year, spindle hours if the shop tracked them, and whether it still holds tolerance today. Tooling and accessories that stay with it count, and so does pallet and rotary configuration on a horizontal, since a two-pallet HEC with a working changer is a different machine from the same casting without one. Jason Puuri scopes each machine himself instead of running a model number through a formula, which is why the build year carries weight here: a 1980s machine and a 2015 machine are different conversations under one nameplate. Photos of the control screen, the data plate and the work envelope speed things along. They are not required.

The Starrag Group Brands We Buy

Starrag Group pulled several older machine tool names under one roof, and we buy equipment from all of them: Heckert horizontal machining centers, SIP jig boring and milling machines, Droop+Rein large-format gantry machines, Dörries vertical lathes, Berthiez vertical turning and grinding machines, and Bumotec multi-process turnmills. Read that as a buying list rather than a stock list. Every one of the 43 listings in this hub is catalogued under the single Starrag brand, so if you are hunting a Berthiez or a Droop+Rein specifically, ask us instead of filtering for it. The single-nameplate habit also explains a quirk of searching this hub. The legacy designation usually survives inside the model number while the brand field just says Starrag, which is how a bumotec s191h turnmill center and a 2VC2800/280MC-FC-V CONTUMAT both surface in a Starrag search. If your machine wears one of the older badges, it is still equipment we buy.

Boring Mills, Gantry Mills and the Big-Iron End

Twelve of the 43 listings sit in boring, gantry and turning categories, not machining-center ones. Six are CNC boring mills, two are gantry and portal mills, and there is one each of a horizontal boring mill, a vertical boring mill, a vertical turret lathe and a turning center. Machines in that group tend to be heavy, old, or both, and the questions that matter shift accordingly. How the machine was set and anchored, the width of the aisle it comes out through, the crane available over it, and the actual footprint measured on the floor all matter more than a catalog spec sheet, because factory documentation on decades-old iron is often long gone. Photos showing the machine in its bay with something for scale are worth more than a model number here. Once you accept an offer, MTE can arrange rigging, crating and freight, arrange the pickup, and buy in all 50 states.

Selling One Machine or Clearing a Floor

MTE is a direct buyer, not a broker and not a listing service. You are selling to us, so there is no listing and no broker. We are an affiliate of Superior Machine and Tool and have been buying and selling used CNC equipment since 2012. Condition is not a gate. A Starrag running production, a Starrag idle since the job that justified it ended, and a Starrag parked while somebody decides on a repair all get scoped the same way. One thing does speed up closing: proof the company holds the machine free and clear, not still carrying it on a lease, since we confirm the true owner before scheduling pickup. And a Starrag is rarely alone on the floor. If you are clearing a cell or a whole building, we buy Mazak, Haas, Okuma, Doosan, DMG MORI and Makino equipment on one quote and one pickup.