A few years ago, at the height of what has turned out to be the boom, Accurite was thinking about abandoning sales of used machinery because it was more work for less return than selling new machinery. Now Director Mark Brownlee is glad he didn’t. “We are having to cope with a 60% increase in activity in this area compared with that of four years ago,” he told NSS.
“In the past couple of months we have taken on another technician to try to cope with our ever increasing second-hand trade.”
Even large companies are looking at the second-hand market and Accurite has just finished commissioning a fully reconditioned Van Voorden 3m circular saw at the Kentish Ragstone quarry of Gallagher, near Maidstone. It had been given a full mechanical up-date and reconditioning and been completely re-wired with a touch-screen control unit.
“Everyone’s looking to save money,” says Mark. “Higher value new machines are very difficult to sell at the moment.”
One area of success for Accurite has been Commanduli edge polishers. The established and respected range is a ‘safe’ investment and the lower end of the range has sold well this year. Accurite has sold eight Penta and Musa Commanduli multi-headed edge-polishers, in most cases part exchanged for existing machinery.
Accurite has put demonstration Penta and Speedy machines into its headquarters in Ulverston in Cumbria for customers to view and operate.
Mark: “Customers can use the machine as though it’s in their own factory. We’re finding this is the best way to show the machine as viewing existing machines in other customers’ factories is becoming more and more difficult as the market tightens.”
At Marmomacc, Commanduli will be showing its most popular single-headed polishing machine in the UK, the Speedy, that has now been made even more
multi-functional by adding a ‘V’ grooving capability.
Shortly after Verona, Accurite will have the ‘V’ groover adaptation at Ulverston for customers to try out.
Sales of Denver’s Monolithic bridge-saws have also been reasonable for Accurite this year, helped again by the part exchange scheme for existing customers that is proving an attractive proposition.
In Verona, Denver is introducing a new Skema monolithic bridge-saw. Yes, it’s an old name, but it’s a new machine with state-of-the-art touch-screen control and galvanised structure for longer life. Other features include linear bearing structures on all three main axes, new simpler automation for up-stands and milling processes and step-cutting capability.
Accurite believes the new Skema will be so popular it has five of them on order to put into stock, although two of them have already been sold ahead of the launch.
Accurite has also just sold a new Denver Quota-4200 CNC workcentre to Chiltern Marble in Bedford. It is due to be commissioned next month and illustrates there is at least some activity on higher value items.
And Simec wire saws have given Accurite a first with the sale of a 56-wire gang saw to a company in the UK that prefers to remain anonymous.
Although Simecs do not carry the lowest prices, the customer appreciated the engineering quality that was incorporated into such a high rate production machine and felt that the initial expenditure would be justified by future reliability and low maintenance costs.