400 Ton Scrap Metal Shear: The Trading-Yard Machine
A large share of 400-ton buyers are not yards at all. They are dealers and processors who buy mixed material loose, size it, and sell the output at a premium — and for that operation the shear is not production equipment, it is margin equipment. The Q91-400 is built for exactly that economics, and this article explains the trading calculation, the published figures behind it, and why cut consistency matters more than raw tonnage when your customer is a mill with a charging specification.
If you are buying for production rather than trading, the general buying guide covers the framework; this piece is about the margin math that justifies the class.
The Published Figures for the Class
| Specification | Q91-400 |
|---|---|
| Rated force | 400 ton |
| Typical output | 35–55 tons per day |
| Continuous cutting | 40 mm plate |
| Occasional cutting | 55 mm plate |
| Duty | Commercial yards, mixed ferrous feed |
Those rows describe a commercial machine: the output band matches a trading operation’s daily throughput, and the boundary rows — 40 mm continuous, 55 mm occasional — cover the sections and plate that arrive in mixed yard intake. What the rows cannot show is what the machine earns, and for a trading buyer that is the number that decides the purchase.
The Margin Calculation
The trading calculation is simple, and it is not about tonnage pride. Material bought loose and sold sized earns more per ton, and the machine pays for itself out of that spread. The spread exists for three reasons, and a gantry shear captures all three.
Specification compliance. Mill and foundry buyers pay for specification compliance, not for tonnage on a scale. Sized, clean, consistent material commands the premium; oversized or inconsistent material gets discounted or rejected. The shear converts an unsellable mix into a sellable spec.
Transport economics. Loose mixed material hauls air. Sized material loads to weight. Every load that leaves the yard fuller is a load that costs less per ton delivered, and over a year of trading that difference compounds quietly into the machine’s payback.
Handling cost. Loose material gets handled three and four times — loaded, sorted, reloaded, reloaded. Sized material gets handled once at the box and once at the truck. In a labour market where every pair of hands is a wage line, handling count is a cost line.
None of those three spreads requires a flagship machine. They require a machine that holds its cut specification load after load — which is the 400’s job description, not a bigger tonnage’s.
Consistency Is the Product
This is the part trading buyers underestimate. The machine’s output is not cut pieces; it is a repeatable specification that your buyer accepts every load. That consistency comes from the build and from the discipline around it: blade clearances held to specification, edge rotation on schedule rather than on failure, and a feed that is sorted before it reaches the box.
Tell us the specification your buyers expect — charge length, piece size, cleanliness — and the configuration and clearance specification are confirmed against it in writing at quotation. That conversation is the difference between a machine that produces a spec and a machine that produces scrap at a known rate.
Where the 400 Sits in the Range
The classes around the 400 exist for neighbouring operations, and the boundaries between them are material boundaries rather than tonnage badges.
| Class | Output band | Continuous / occasional | Fits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q91-315 | 25–45 t/day | 30 mm / 50 mm | Mixed feed, two-shift growing yards |
| Q91-400 | 35–55 t/day | 40 mm / 55 mm | Commercial yards, trading operations |
| Q91-500 | 45–60 t/day | 50 mm / 65 mm | Demolition feed, concrete-adhered sections |
| Q91-630 | 60–80 t/day | 60 mm / 80 mm | Continuous HMS 1 & 2 |
A trading yard whose intake runs to heavier sections and demolition material with concrete adherence belongs on the 500 — the 500-ton guide covers that feed in detail. A yard with continuous HMS is a 630 operation, full stop. The 400 is the class for the commercial middle, and most trading buyers recognise it the moment they see the boundary rows.
What the Quotation Should Pin Down
For a trading buyer, four conversations decide whether the machine earns its keep:
- The output specification. Charge length, piece size and cleanliness your buyers accept — confirmed in writing, and confirmed again at commissioning with test runs on your actual material.
- The heavy tail. The three heaviest pieces in a normal month, measured. The blade configuration and steel grade recommendation follows that list, not a brochure average.
- The duty declaration. Single shift or two. A commercial build quoted for two shifts is a different machine than one quoted for one, and the difference shows up in year three rather than on the price sheet.
- The flow plan. Where sized material accumulates and how it loads out. A trading yard lives or dies on load-out turnaround, and the machine’s discharge plan is part of that.
Send those four with your inquiry and the quotation comes back within two business days, factory direct, with the specification sheet your electrician and foundation contractor can work from. If your numbers say a different class, the quotation will say that too.
Reading Your Buyer’s Specification Before You Order
The specification your customer accepts is the real specification of your machine, and it is worth pinning down before the order rather than discovering it at the first rejected load. Three questions cover most of it. What charge length does the buyer accept — and is it a range or a single figure? What piece size and cleanliness does the furnace actually want, as distinct from what the purchase contract says? And how is compliance verified on arrival — by sample, by load, or by trust?
The answers change the configuration. A buyer who accepts a charge-length range lets you run the PLC presets wide and optimise for throughput; a buyer with a single figure turns every cut into a specification check. A buyer who samples occasionally lets you plan maintenance windows around production; a buyer who checks every load turns blade discipline into a contractual matter rather than an operational one. None of these answers is difficult to get — most buyers will state them plainly when asked — and all of them belong in the quotation conversation so the machine that arrives is configured against the spec that pays.
There is a commercial reason to be strict about this beyond the machine. A trading operation’s reputation is built on loads that pass, and the first rejected load costs more than the discount that follows it. The shear is where the specification is made or missed, and the configuration conversation at quotation is where it gets decided.
Load-Out: The Stage Nobody Quotes
Trading yards live on load-out turnaround, and the shear’s discharge plan is where that turnaround is won or lost. Sized material needs a destination that clears at the rate the box produces it — a bay that fills to a truck, a conveyor to the next stage, or a sorting floor with the handling to match. The most common trading-yard bottleneck is not the machine; it is the pile of sized material waiting for a truck that arrives on someone else’s schedule.
Plan the load-out at quotation rather than after installation. Discharge height, accumulation and the handling between box and truck all get confirmed against your layout, and the yards that do this commission in week one rather than rebuilding the connection in month two. If a baler or shredder sits behind the shear as a second stage, size the two stages against each other at the same time — the baler range covers the compression side of the line.
Buyer FAQ
Is the 400 right for a trading operation?
If your intake is mixed ferrous with routine sections and plate to 40 mm, and you sell sized material to a specification, this is the class the margin math supports. Continuous HMS points to the 630.
What daily tonnage does it handle?
35 to 55 tons per day, with the position inside the band set by material, loading efficiency and running hours. The configuration comes back sized against your actual material profile.
Does the machine guarantee my output specification?
The build is configured against the specification you declare, and commissioning includes test runs on your material. Holding the spec day to day is a blade-discipline and feed-sorting practice, which we cover in the configuration conversation.
How does it compare with a baler for a trading yard?
Different jobs: the shear sizes heavy and sectioned material; a baler compresses light loose material into density. Trading operations handling both often run a shear first and a baler behind it.
What warranty and support come with the machine?
A standard one-year warranty with extended main-frame coverage available per order, CE and ISO 9001 certification, factory load testing before shipment, and spare blades shipped within 48 hours by DHL or FedEx. Remote installation guidance, commissioning support and operator training come as standard, with on-site service quotable where the site requires it.