Motor graders--the ugly machines that keep going and going. (Trendlines).

Motor graders have been around a long time, yet every time I see one working, I think to myself that they look like something Out of Star Wars. But as gangly as they sometimes appear, motor graders perform a lot of vital work. Modern highways and streets would probably not be as good as they

These machines also find their way into mines and logging operations to keep the roads smooth, the potholes to a minimum and to push snow off during the winter months.

The market for graders, while cyclical, has been reasonably stable in North America over the past 20 years, although during the past five, sales have taken a long slide, dropping each year since 1998 from a high of around 4500 in that year to just over 3250 in 2002. The average yearly sales of graders since 1991 has been about 3700 units, with seven of the past 12 years above that level and five below The low point in sales since 1990 occurred in 1992, when sales totaled about 2900 units.

Back when interstate highways were being constructed all over the U.S., grader sales were awesome, upwards of 5000 and 6000 units each year. But those days are gone, and we're back to plain, old, normal fixing what's broken and improving on its appearance, at least on the highways.

Most of last year's sales (close to 65 percent) went to contractors, municipalities and other organizations dealing with road and highway maintenance and construction. Commercial and residential building contractors purchased about 10 to 15 percent of the total, while dealers and rental houses bought about 5 to 10 percent. The remaining 20 percent of sales went to a variety of end users, including mining and forestry operations.

Sales regionally are split, with 84 percent of these machines being sold in the U.S. and 16 percent in Canada. The Canadian market has always been a reasonably good one for graders, because of the types of roads and the number that need grading in the spring in remote locations. Sales in Canada have become very cyclical over the years, because the buying is done by national or provincial governments. Sometimes they have money and sometimes they don't. When they do, they buy a lot, but last year was not a buying year in Canada.