Ex-Factory for Buying Used Machinery?

[Aaron Mills]

Does anyone have any experience with using Ex-Factory? I've been browsing it, and am curious how it works and if it is reliable.

Thanks,

Aaron

[Matt Meiser]

I was somewhat interested in a planer I saw on there. I sent an email to them asking several questions. They only answered about 1/2, and not very completely. I sent a second email asking for clarification. The guy responded that I should call him to negotiate a deal. I gave up after that, figuring that if they were that unhelpful trying to make the sale, I didn't want to deal with them.

[Aaron Mills]

I was somewhat interested in a planer I saw on there. I sent an email to them asking several questions. They only answered about 1/2, and not very completely. I sent a second email asking for clarification. The guy responded that I should call him to negotiate a deal. I gave up after that, figuring that if they were that unhelpful trying to make the sale, I didn't want to deal with them.

Your experience is the type of thing that makes me wary of the site. It seems as if they are simply a middle man in NC for the transaction, even though the seller is in the same city as the potential buyer. Do you know how Ex-factory turns a profit? Do they charge the seller to list and connect them to buyers?

Thanks,

Aaron

[Rob Russell]

This is my opinion only, because I have never bought anything through Exfactory.

A lot of the machinery seems overpriced. I'd also be wary of the condition of the machinery. If it's truly coming out of a production environment, it could have seen some hard use.

JMO.

Rob

[Paul Canaris]

I can give you the in's and out's of buying machinery from both Ex-Factory and E-bay as I have done both, but not on line. If you want, send me your phone number by e-mail...

[martyphee]

From my experiance they don't actually have most of the they sell.

For instance. I was looking at a Greenlee 225 mortiser on their site. The one they had looked really familar. Sure enought it was the same one I was looking at at Robert Ivans. Only exfactory jacked the price up from $1500 to $3000.

Their prices are really high. You'd be better off keep looking. There's a lot of machinery dealers out there.

Also look at woodweb.com, nebraskatool, irsauctions, dovebid

Put an ad on woodweb if your looking for something perticular. I've done that many times. You'll get a lot of dealers asking astronomical prices, but you can always get them down on the price.

[Steve Clardy]

I get their catalog. Haven't bought from them.

[Philip Glover]

I always look at Ex-Factory, but the prices are too high. I have bought through IRS and have had good results. I am sure that some other on-line dealers may be good too, but Ex-Factory is only good for reference purposes as far as I am concerned.

Regards,
Phil

[Rob Russell]

I can give you the in's and out's of buying machinery from both Ex-Factory and E-bay as I have done both, but not on line. If you want, send me your phone number by e-mail...

Paul,

If you have general experiences that you can post, it would be really valuable to those of us who are still seeking more electron-burning devices. You may not want to include specific names of sellers, etc - but as a "hands-on" buyer you experience is valuable to a lot of us.

Rob

[lou sansone]

as others have said, ex-factory is a machinery broker and so they have to make some money on the sale as well. I have bought machines from folks who were listing equipment through them and had very good results. On 2 different occasions it turned out that I went direct to the machinery seller because I could see that they were advertising the same piece of equipment, but with a more "whole sale" value when buying direct. Keep in mind that used equipment is "used" and some will be real used ! Machinery auctions can be good, but you really do not know the condition of the equipment at all, unless you can personally inspect it. Depending on the cost, sometimes it doesn't matter if you buy it sight unseen. At 5 cents / $ it is no big deal. If you get close to 50 cents / $ then you really should take a look at it in person, or establish a relationship with a good reputable dealer.


lou

[Dick Strauss]

I'm new to shopping for woodworking tools on the net. I have to agree that the prices on Ex-Factory seem to be very high. I saw a used Delta DJ20 on Ex-Factory selling for more than a new one at Toolking. Not knowing if I'm comparing apples to apples in terms of condition, it also seems to me that the prices at Ex-Factory are considerably higher than other sites.

Dick

[Alan Turner]

I would be wary of Ex-Factory unless you know a ton about what you are buying. On the older tools it can be a bear to get parts. I love old machinery, but do not consider myself very expert at all. So, my general preference, although not always, is to buy from a reliable dealer who does know how to evaluate a tool. One further note - pieces coming out of factories have been driven long and hard, and whether they have left any useful life is always a question. But, if you can buy out of a pattern shop, that is another matter. Those guys valued accuracy, and knew how to care for their heavy iron. As pattern shops drop like flies, I don't know if this is still possible.

[Aaron Mills]

Thanks for all the feedback. I'm in no particular rush to pick up any machinery, but I'd like to explore my options. What are some reliable dealers, preferably in the Northwest (or with free/very cheap shipping in the lower 48), of old machinery?

Thanks,

Aaron

[lou sansone]

Thanks for all the feedback. I'm in no particular rush to pick up any machinery, but I'd like to explore my options. What are some reliable dealers, preferably in the Northwest (or with free/very cheap shipping in the lower 48), of old machinery?

Thanks,

Aaron

Not sure about dealers in the northwest. but in regard to the idea of cheap or free shipping .... no way - aint' gonna happen:D . Seriously, that is one of the issues with used heavy machinery, you have to have a way to pick it up or pay the freight and hope for the best with trucking firms. That is one of the reasons I have my own flat bed truck.


A couple of other points to consider for machinery auctions is if the equipment is FOB or not. Many auctions put the responsibility of rigging back on the buyer and that can be a pain. Usually there are local riggers who can disconnect the machine and load it on your truck, but their cost can become a good percentage of the machine itself. I have passed up excellent opportunities just for that reason alone. About a year ago I passed up the opportunity to buy 2 "uni-point" saws ( if you don't know what a unipoint saw is then take a look at the "northfield foundry" web site and then look at unipoint saw ) that sold for only about 4 cents on the dollar!! That was dumb on my part..


You can use commercial truckers to move the machines, but my experinece has not been great due to the fact that you often have to try to cooridinate the rigger and the trucker and that does not work all that good. There are "crate and freight" guys, but I have found them real expensive, even for little things. About 2 years ago I bought a small machine ( about the size of a little suitcase ) and they wanted well over 500 just to ship it. I ended up picking it up myself. My advise it to try to find equipment within your local geographical region that you can pick up, or that is FOB and you arrainge for shipping yourself.

best wishes
lou

[Paul Canaris]

You just need to be careful with Ex-Factory. Much of what is said about them by posters here is true, some of what is said is not totally fair.

Ex-Factory sometimes uses the wrong pictures or technical literature with a given unit (not I think to deceive, but sometimes that's all they have to use and other times they just get lazy) they are listing; yes they get between you and the seller (they are protecting their sale so no one deals directly and cuts them out) and yes their markups on some items are ridiculous (they range from 15% to who knows what).

However, from time to time a great deal comes along as with my Jointer (SAC 430 16”) and you get a price you are happy with (you can negotiate price; you just do it through them). In another case I came across a Griggio 24” planer listed on Ex-Factory and also at the actual sellers site (he was a dealer); so I was able to use the Ex price as a guide and deal directly with the dealer to drop his price considerably; as it was multiply listed I was under no moral obligation to go through Ex-Factory on that one. Another time I almost snagged a Laguna filter 100 dust collector (in my opinion, one of the best available in the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:country-region><st1:place>USA</st1:place></st1:country-region>) in mint condition for $1800, but someone beat me to it.

One of the positives about Ex; sometimes people sell things when they are going bankrupt, so passing them a cashiers check can be risky if they drop off the face of the earth and you get nothing.
Ex makes the transaction; as I understand it, if you don’t get the machine, they refund you, which may result in a loss to them of quite a chunk. Also, you can usually get Ex to nudge the seller into free crating and loading, so you save a few hundred right there.

<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p> </o:p>

On the other hand, E-Bay is great as well. As most of you know, there are some top notch sellers on e-bay, given their high levels of positive feedback as reasonable reassurance; two dealers in particular come to mind. The final prices of most of these auctions is usually lower than a similar item offered through Ex factory or even a private sale and you can ask all the questions you want and negotiate crating and shipping often. On the other hand as a rule, there is not as much variety at any given time as on Ex. An example of a purchase on e-bay was my Clausing engine lathe 13”/48” full range of gears and standard and metric thread cutting capacity in good condition; I got it for a very very reasonable price…this lathe has capabilities I will likely never even b able to fully exploit, it’s that good and it was a local sale and pickup for even more savings. So if you stick with top rated sellers and ask a lot of questions, you will likely come out very happy.

<o:p> </o:p>

As for purchasing equipment sight unseen from someone half way across the country, with no Ex or E-bay as an interface, well “Caveat Emptor”.

[Alan Turner]

I have bought only one major tool via an ebay auciton, but was well satisfied. It was an Oliver 20" jointer, and it was being sold by a pattern shop in Lou's back yard (Connecticut). Don't know how he missed it! I was able to speak with the seller's lead patternmaker (the shop was closing), and based upon those discussiosns, felt quite comfortable. It was not a steal, as Olivers have a loyal following, but I bought it pretty reasonably considering that I was bidding against a number of collectors, I assume. My regular dealer offered me $2500 more than I paid for it after he saw it (I engaged him to move that and a number of other tools as he is a great rigger). Anyway, my point is that if you can actually speak with the people that are selling, Ebay mat be a reasonable alternative.

In these several discussions I learned that they were selling other tools not yet listed, and I bought several at what I consider to be very good values, based upon my feeling for the shop and its maintainence habits. A State OSS, tilting table, with all the spindles, and a toilet paper case sized box of sleeves, for $275, and a Zimmerman 800 mm bandsaw with 25" resaw capacity for $2300, all before they listed it on ebay. In a similar transaction, I just missed a Griggio slot mortiser with tilting table out of Los Angles because I was playing with a sniper vendor. In that case I had again spken extenisvely with the seller, looked at the pix, and felt it was a good tool, but trying to be cheap, I goofed it up, and the bottom line was that he decided to hold on to it. Bummer, as these are quite hard to source.

Anyway, the I guess the point is that ebay does not have to be faceless if you are willing to be diligent.