Britannia AuctionsMachinery and engineering auctions in Hull
Caravans are built from steel, aluminium, timber and foam, and every one of those has a machine behind it. The chassis shops around Hull and the East Riding run welding cells, section cutting saws, punching and folding machines and jigs the length of a van. The joinery firms that make the furniture run panel saws, edgebanders, CNC routers, beam saws and dust extraction.
When one of those firms closes or moves, the sale is a mixed one. Fabrication kit sells to fabricators and woodworking machinery to joiners and shopfitters. The general engineering plant in the maintenance shop sells to anyone. We catalogue each group for the buyers who want it and put the whole factory in one online sale.
Tell us what is on the floor through the contact form, with makes and models where you have them.
Woodworking machinery in a metalworking sale
A caravan factory is unusual because the joinery shop and the chassis shop are often under the same roof, and the two sets of machines have different buyers. We run them as two parts of one catalogue.
Woodworking lots are listed with the details a joinery buyer looks for. Bed length on a panel saw, feed speed and glue type on an edgebander, table size and spindle power on a CNC router, and whether the dust extraction and the tooling are included. Beam saws and wide belt sanders suit kitchen and shopfitting firms across the country.
Chassis fabrication lots are listed by capacity. Welding sets by amperage, saws by the largest section they cut, folders by length and tonnage, and jigs by the chassis lengths they were built for. Jigs are hard to sell outside the caravan trade, so we say which vans they fit and let the other chassis firms in the East Riding decide. Access at Sutton Fields, or wherever the factory is, is checked at the site visit and described in the catalogue.
Selling in the quiet part of the season
The caravan trade works to a season, with the factories busiest before the dealers stock up for spring. That shapes when a supply chain firm can release its plant and when the buyers are looking.
A chassis or joinery firm that has lost a contract usually finds out after the season's orders are placed, which means the machines come free in the autumn or winter. That can be a reasonable time to sell, because the other firms in the trade are planning the next build, and the woodworking buyers outside the trade do not work to the same season.
We also see engineering plant from the port and the offshore wind work, and from the food and healthcare factories around the city. Those maintenance shops hold lathes, mills, pillar drills, welding sets and compressors that go into a general machinery sale. Online bidding opens the sale to the rest of the country, and the trade over the Humber Bridge in Lincolnshire, and in Beverley, Goole, Driffield and Brough, is within easy reach of a viewing day.
What these sales can include
- CNC turning centres
- CNC vertical and horizontal machining centres
- Manual and toolroom lathes
- Milling machines
- Surface and cylindrical grinders
- Press brakes and guillotines
- Laser, plasma and waterjet cutters
- Bandsaws and cold saws
- Radial arm and pillar drills
- Welding sets and positioners
- Coordinate measuring machines
- Tooling, chucks and workholding
- Compressors and dust extraction
- Cranes, hoists and forklifts
Viewing, bidding and the buyer's premium
Machinery sales run as online timed auctions. The catalogue is published with photographs and specifications. Buyers register, view the machines on the viewing day, and bid online until the lots close. The sale is advertised to the engineering trade, and bidding is online and open to buyers across the UK and beyond.
The buyer pays the hammer price plus the buyer's premium. VAT is charged where it applies and shown separately on the buyer's invoice. Ask and we will go through the specifics for your sale. Where a buyer is overseas, they arrange their own export.
Machines are offered as seen under the auction terms, and buyers are expected to inspect before bidding, which is why the viewing day matters. Machines that can be run safely stay connected for the viewing day so your staff can demonstrate them where that is agreed, and everything else is isolated and left safe.
The machinery and engineering auctions page covers what the buyers want to know, what affects demand, reserves and estimates, removal and access, when a private sale beats an auction.
Questions about selling in Hull
- Our chassis jigs were built for one customer's vans. Are they worth putting in the sale?
Put them in, but expect the value to be in the steel and the components rather than the jig. A jig built for one range is only useful to a shop making that range or something close to it, so we describe the lengths and widths it was set for and let the other chassis firms decide. If nobody in the trade bids, the clamps, cylinders, castors and fabricated frames can still be lotted separately for a fabricator. Either way it costs nothing to include them.
- Can woodworking and metalworking buyers view on the same day?
Yes, and it is normally better that they do. One viewing day at the factory keeps disruption to a day, and the two groups look at different machines so they do not get in each other's way. We split the catalogue into clear sections so a joinery buyer can go straight to the routers and edgebanders and a fabricator to the welding bays. The dust extraction, compressors, racking and forklifts sit at the end of the catalogue because both groups may want them.
More questions about machinery auctions
Related services
Guides
- How a commercial asset auction works
A stage by stage account of an online timed auction for business assets. It covers the asset schedule, cataloguing, viewing days, how bidding closes, buyer's premium and VAT, collection and how you get paid.
- Preparing machinery and equipment for sale
What to do before viewing day. Keep the machines that can be run safely available to demonstrate, isolate the rest, clean but do not repaint, find the tooling and manuals, and sort out access for removal.
- How used machinery is valued
Buyers pay for what a machine will do for them, less what it costs to get it out and running. This guide explains how make, hours, tooling, demand and removal cost feed a guide price, and why that price is not book value.