Used Zimmermann Machines We Buy

Who Builds Zimmermann Portal Mills

The Zimmermann machines we buy are built by F. Zimmermann GmbH, a family-run company headquartered in Neuhausen a.d.F., Germany. Friedrich Zimmermann founded it in 1933 as a contract manufacturer and service provider for electrical installations, not as a machine builder. The turn came in 1994, when Rudolf Gänzle took over all of the business shares and Zimmermann grew into a niche supplier of portal milling machines.

The Gänzle family still runs it: Frieder Gänzle took over the management in 2018. The current headquarters building in Neuhausen went up in 2013, and in 2023 Zimmermann bought EiMa Maschinenbau GmbH, adding a lightweight segment to its portal milling range.

Zimmermann Inc. and the North American Market

Zimmermann opened up the Chinese and North American markets in 2001, the year it expanded at its Denkendorf site. Its US subsidiary, Zimmermann Inc., was founded in 2005 and sits in Wixom, Michigan, where Zimmermann built the subsidiary a new headquarters with a showroom in 2016. The Wixom office covers sales, assembly operations, service and after-sales, application engineering support and a spare parts warehouse.

One Michigan job shows that office at work: Zimmermann Inc. installed and commissioned an FZU37 at Century Tool, a tool and die maker in Fenton, Michigan, and Zimmermann says the machine's Heidenhain TNC7 was the first machine tool installation of that control in America.

Zimmermann's Own Timeline

The dated entries on Zimmermann's About Us page, which runs to 2023, in the order Zimmermann lists them:

Zimmermann's Current Gantry and Horizontal Lines

The machine families on Zimmermann's site today, with what Zimmermann says each is built for. Designations found on older machines, such as FZ30, FZ37 or FZ100, are not in this current list:

Heads, Controls and the VH Names

On a Zimmermann the milling head counts for as much as the gantry. Zimmermann calls its heads the core element of its machines, and its own engineering team in Neuhausen designs and builds them. The VH names are heads, not machines: the VH10, VH20 and VH30 are two-axis heads offered on the FZU32, the VH40 and VH60 are two-axis heads for the heavier FZP42, and the M3ABC is a three-axis head.

Older machines carry earlier heads and controls. The FZ38 on Zimmermann's own used-machine list, for one, has a VH2 two-axis head and a Siemens 840D control, while a new machine ships with the buyer's choice of Heidenhain TNC7 or Siemens SINUMERIK ONE. When you describe a Zimmermann to us, put the head designation and its condition right beside the model, and mention any spare or rebuilt head.

Zimmermann Service, or Selling the Machine

Zimmermann supports its machines itself: a service hotline, remote diagnostics, inspections and staggered maintenance contracts, repair of its milling heads with replacement heads on hand for troubleshooting, and spindle hotels that store and service spindles. It states a 95% spare part availability. It also takes pre-owned machines of its own, overhauls them and fits new technology before offering them again.

For a gantry you mean to keep running, that service network is the route. For one you want gone as it stands, we buy it outright, and paperwork from a head repair or a maintenance contract is worth sending along with the details.

What Is in the Zimmermann Listings We Hold

Milling is the through line here. Of the 97 Zimmermann listings in this hub, 32 are filed as CNC milling machines and 30 as CNC gantry and portal mills, so those two categories account for 62 of the 97. Gantry and portal mills alone are close to a third of the book. Another 25 sit under Metal Cutting, a broad catalog bucket rather than a machine type, so read it as where a row landed and not as a description of the machine. The rest is thin and specific: 3 CNC 5-axis machining centers, 3 CNC vertical machining centers, 1 CNC boring mill, 1 CNC vertical band saw, 1 rollforming machine, and 1 filed under CNC miscellaneous. Across all 97 listings there are 71 distinct models, so a repeated designation is the exception. Of those 97 rows, 36 record a build year, running from 1976 to 2025. The other 61 carry no year.

The FZ Families and the Models Under Them

The family roll-up here keys on the leading token of each model string, which is why FZ, FZ30, FZ0 and FZU32 land in four separate buckets even though all are FZ-prefixed. Counted that way, FZ is 36 listings, the largest model family in this hub and six times the next. FZ30 is 6 and SZ is 6. PS is 3. FF1000, FZ0, FZU32 and BK2 are 2 apiece. Those eight families cover 59 of the 97 listings, and the other 38 sit in models that appear once. The designations buyers type show up in the repeat rows: FZ 30, FZ-30, FZ 37, FZ 33, FZ 38, FZU32, SZ 2 and SZ 4. Single listings include FZP27, FZP42, FZP22, FZU 32, FZU37, FZU22, FZ 20, FZ 37-5, FZ 40-5, FZH and FX 37. That view covers 66 of the 97 listings, a sample and not the full roster of 71 models.

What Determines the Offer on a Used Zimmermann

Control type is where we start. We buy Zimmermann machines running Siemens Sinumerik and Heidenhain TNC controls, and the control generation tells us most of what a shop could do with the machine once it lands on their floor. From there it is model and year, spindle hours if they are tracked, travels and work envelope, condition including whether the machine still holds tolerance, and whether tooling, heads or accessories go with it. Year carries real weight on a machine like this. The Zimmermann listings that record a build year run from 1976 to 2025, and a late-1970s machine and a 2025 machine are two different conversations even when the model prefix matches. Jason Puuri scopes the machine and puts the number on the table himself rather than running your details through a formula. Photos speed things up and are not required. A quote typically comes back in 24 to 48 hours.

What to Have Ready Before You Call

Read the model number off the data plate, not from memory. Zimmermann designations sit close together and a single character changes the machine. Add the build year, the control type and generation, spindle hours if your records track them, and an honest note on whether it still holds tolerance. List the tooling, heads and accessories that go with it, and the ones that do not. Two photos do the rest: one of the control screen, one of the work envelope. A bill of sale or other proof the company owns the machine outright, not still paying it off through a lease, confirms we are buying from the actual owner before pickup. MTE is not a broker or a listing service. No listing, no broker, and you sell to us rather than wait on a third-party buyer. We are an affiliate of Superior Machine and Tool, buying and selling used CNC equipment since 2012.

Getting a Gantry Machine Off Your Floor

Gantry and portal mills are 30 of the 97 listings in this hub, so many sellers who land here are moving a large-footprint machine, not something that rolls onto a truck. MTE can arrange rigging, crating and freight, in all 50 states. We can arrange large-format machine transport, which is what a portal mill move asks for. We can arrange the pickup. On a portal machine the rigging plan is usually the long pole in the schedule, which is why a photo showing the overall footprint and how the machine sits in the bay beats a catalog spec sheet. That goes double on older units, where factory documentation is hard to track down. Tell us about the bay too: door width, ceiling height, what sits between the machine and the dock. Running production, sitting idle, or needing work, we will still look at it.

The Zimmermann Machines That Are Not Portal Mills

Not every listing under the Zimmermann name in this catalog is a portal mill. Alongside the milling core sit 1 CNC boring mill, 1 CNC vertical band saw, 1 rollforming machine and 1 filed under CNC miscellaneous, four rows out of 97. Single listings also carry VH names: VH2, VH4, VH5, VH20 and VH30. On a Zimmermann those are milling-head designations, so a VH row may be a head on its own or a machine listed by its head; there is also a VBZ 250. SZ is 6 listings including an SZ-PICCOLO, PS is 3, BK2 is 2 with a single BK3 alongside, and there is one M3 ABC, Zimmermann's three-axis milling head. Two raw listing titles carry their own descriptors: a PS 2 recorded as a woodworking sander, and an FF1000 recorded as a Z-Panel roofing machine. That is what those rows say, reported not explained. A model number off the data plate is enough for us to place a machine correctly. Clearing a mixed floor, we buy Mazak, Makino, DMG Mori and Starrag equipment on the same quote and pickup schedule.