Used Walter Machines We Buy

Which Walter Builds These Grinders

The Walter grinders on this page are built by Walter Maschinenbau GmbH, headquartered in Tübingen, Germany. It makes CNC machines for grinding, eroding and laser processing of tools, plus optical CNC measuring machines. Together with EWAG it forms a tool-machining group within UNITED MACHINING SOLUTIONS, whose UNITED GRINDING division also holds STUDER, BLOHM and MÄGERLE.

WALTER dates its history to 1919, when Richard Walter founded Walter Montanwerke in Düsseldorf. The company moved its headquarters to Tübingen in 1924, filed its first cemented-carbide patents in 1926 and became Walter AG in 1990. In 2004 the machine tool division of Walter AG became part of the Schleifring Group and took the name Walter Maschinenbau GmbH, and in 2013 Schleifring became the UNITED GRINDING Group. That is why the grinder builder is Walter Maschinenbau, not Walter AG.

Most of our listings under the Walter name are WALTER tool grinders and measuring machines. A few are other companies' equipment that carries the Walter name, such as coating pans and a panel saw. Tell us whose plate is on your machine and we place it.

Where WALTER Grinders Are Built

WALTER builds its tool machines in Kuřim, near Brno in the Czech Republic, where it says it has produced them for more than 25 years; its history dates the Kuřim subsidiary to 1996. Tübingen is the headquarters, and Garbsen is home to WALTER's Research Center for Measuring Technology. WALTER's careers page counts roughly 180 people at the two German sites and 280 at the Kuřim plant.

In the US, WALTER opened Walter Grinders USA in Fredericksburg, Virginia, in 1981, its first branch outside Europe. Today WALTER machines are sold and serviced in North America by UNITED GRINDING North America, headquartered in Miamisburg, Ohio.

WALTER Tool Grinder Milestones

The tool grinding milestones on WALTER's own history page, which runs to 2024, in order:

WALTER's page dates each family by its launch year. A family stays in production for years, so the build year of a given grinder is on its data plate, not in this table.

WALTER's Current HELITRONIC Range and Its Controls

WALTER's current tool grinding page lists eight HELITRONIC grinders: the FUSION, RAPID, G 200, MINI PLUS, RAPTOR, POWER 400, MICRO and VISION 400 L, the last for tool lengths up to 420 mm. UNITED GRINDING North America's WALTER page adds the machines that erode as well as grind, such as the HELITRONIC DIAMOND EVOLUTION and the POWER DIAMOND 400, which erodes PKD (PCD) and CBN tools and grinds high-speed steel and carbide, and the HELICHECK non-contact measuring machines.

On the control side, WALTER's maintenance program covers every WALTER grinding and EDM machine with a FANUC control, and WALTER sells an upgrade that moves an older tool grinder's control to current hardware running Windows 10. Tool programs are written in WALTER's own HELITRONIC TOOL STUDIO software. When you sell, note the control hardware, whether that upgrade was done and which TOOL STUDIO version is installed, because the electronics can be newer or older than the machine itself.

Grind Only, or Grind and Erode

Two WALTER grinders of the same age can sit far apart on price, and the model name says why. A machine with DIAMOND in its name erodes as well as grinds, the "Two-in-One" concept WALTER introduced with the HELITRONIC POWER DIAMOND, so it serves shops making PCD tools. A VISION is WALTER's high-precision grinder with linear drives. A POWER is the long-running workhorse: on WALTER's page the HELITRONIC POWER 400 grinds tools from 3 to 315 mm in diameter, up to 520 mm of machining length and up to 50 kg. The MINI PLUS and MICRO are built for smaller tools.

After the model, what moves the number is what is attached: a loader or robot, a HELICHECK measuring machine, and the wheel packs and collets that stay with it. Send the full model string so we know which of these grinders we are pricing.

WALTER Rebuilds and Retrofits, or Selling Outright

WALTER runs its own overhaul departments. A full machine overhaul strips the grinder down, renews the guideways, repaints it and recommissions it with a geometry inspection, and WALTER names a rebuild for the HELITRONIC POWER. Its retrofit service upgrades components to the current state of the art or modifies a machine for new work, with options such as FANUC performance packages, and WALTER presents retrofits as a way to preserve a machine's value. That is the route for a grinder you plan to keep.

For one that has dropped out of your production plan, we buy it outright. Paperwork from a WALTER overhaul or retrofit is worth sending with the details, because it shows a buyer what was renewed.

What the 275 Walter Listings Actually Hold

The Walter facet runs 275 listings, and the split is lopsided toward grinding. CNC Tool and Cutter Grinders account for 126 of them, CNC Miscellaneous Machines 82, CNC Grinding Machines 34, CNC Rotary Tables 17, and CNC Drilling and Tapping Centers 8. After that the tail thins out fast: CNC Band Saws at 2, and a single listing each under CNC Lathes, CNC Generators, CNC Vertical Band Saws, CNC EDM Machines, Metal Cutting and CNC Punching Machines. Put the two grinding categories together and you get 160 of 275 listings, so close to six in ten entries here are grinders of one kind or another. Those 275 listings also carry 260 distinct model designations, nearly one model per listing, so almost nothing in this hub is a repeating stock item. Each designation is effectively a one-off, and that is what shapes how we scope a Walter when you call about selling one.

HELITRONIC, the Family That Carries This Hub

HELITRONIC is the one model family here with real depth: 90 of the 275 listings, right around a third of the hub. It is Walter's tool and cutter grinding line, which is why 70 of those 90 listings file under CNC Tool and Cutter Grinders and the other 20 under CNC Grinding Machines. Designations that show up by name include HELITRONIC POWER, HELITRONIC POWER 400, HELITRONIC POWER DIAMOND, HELITRONIC 55, HELITRONIC 55CNC, HELITRONIC VISION, HELITRONIC ESSENTIAL, HELITRONIC DIAMOND EVOLUTION and HELITRONIC HMC-400, alongside MINI POWER 500, RS-1000 and UWS 400. Smaller grinder-side families sit around it: WOODTRONIC at 5 listings, HELIOTRONIC, HELI, F2232, HMC and MINI at 4 each, and POWER at 3. HELIOTRONIC, F2232 and POWER file entirely under CNC Tool and Cutter Grinders, while WOODTRONIC, HMC and MINI split between that category and CNC Grinding Machines, and HELI carries a Miscellaneous listing as well. Catalog spelling varies, so HELIOTRONIC and HELI are recorded apart from HELITRONIC rather than folded into it. However your data plate reads, send the full string and we will place it.

What Determines the Offer on a Used Walter Grinder

Because 160 of the 275 listings are grinders, the questions we ask about a Walter start at the wheel spindle. Hours on it, whether it has been rebuilt, and whether it still holds tolerance on a test grind tell us more than almost anything else. After that comes the CNC control generation and whether parts and service for it are still reachable, the wheel packs, collets and workholding included with the machine, any loader or robot automation attached to it, and whether an integrated measuring or probing setup comes along. Age matters too. Across the 70 listings in this hub that record a year, the range runs from 1974 to 2022, so a 1980s grinder and a 2018 grinder are genuinely different conversations. Jason Puuri scopes each machine against those details himself rather than running a formula. Photos of the control screen and the work zone are usually enough for a first number.

Rotary Tables, Saws and the Long Tail

Not everything under this facet is a WALTER grinder, and not every listing filed under the Walter name comes from Walter Maschinenbau. Set aside the 82 listings in the CNC Miscellaneous Machines catch-all and CNC Rotary Tables are the largest machine class outside grinding, at 17 listings. RTS at 6 listings, RTL at 3 and RTMN225 at 3 all sit 100 percent inside that category, and the catalog keeps a separate RTMN key at 2 listings. Real designations in this cluster read RTS-500TG, RTMN225 and RTL-800 MG. Past that it is a genuine long tail, not a second line of business. CNC Drilling and Tapping Centers run 8 listings, CNC Band Saws 2, CNC Vertical Band Saws 1, and one listing apiece under CNC Lathes, CNC Generators, CNC EDM Machines, Metal Cutting and CNC Punching Machines. Measuring and presetting equipment shows up here too, with TOOLCHECK, PROTEC and RIS500TG at 3 listings each and all three filing under Miscellaneous, plus HELICHECK at 2. When a whole tool room comes apart, that gear gets scoped alongside the grinders rather than left off the list.

Have This Ready Before You Call

The single most useful thing you can send is the full designation off the data plate, typed exactly as it reads, plus the serial number. Walter designations repeat across very different products: 260 distinct models across 275 listings, with the same leading tokens turning up on grinders, rotary tables, measuring equipment and tooling part numbers. A partial string like POWER or HMC does not place a machine on its own. After that: control type and generation, wheel spindle hours if your records track them, the year it was built, which wheel packs, collets and fixturing are on hand, whether it currently holds tolerance, and whether it is running or has been sitting. Year matters more than people expect, and we have to ask rather than look it up, because only 70 of the 275 listings in this hub record one. Two or three photos, including the control screen, round it out.

Selling a Walter Outright Instead of Listing It

MTE buys the machine. There is no consignment, no listing, no broker in the middle, and no requirement to buy a new machine the way a manufacturer trade-in works. That matters most when the grinder is already idle, holding floor space every week it waits on someone else's buyer. A single Helitronic or a whole tool room comes out on one quote and one pickup schedule, and each machine still gets scoped on its own condition rather than lumped into a blanket number. Machines pulled during a changeover and machines that need work get scoped too, so tell us upfront what is wrong rather than letting us assume it runs. We buy well beyond Walter, so Mazak, Haas, Okuma, Doosan, DMG MORI and Makino equipment on the same floor goes on that quote. Proof the company owns the machine outright, rather than still carrying a lease, speeds closing once you accept a number.