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Drummond 5" "double-height bed" lathe circa 1912. Careful examination of the above illustration (of an early 5-inch) will show that, whilst the saddle ran on one pair of low-set bed ways, the tailstock has it own ways at a much higher level. This design, introduced on a 4-inch version some years earlier, aimed to provide a very large gap, capable of allowing the saddle to travel, fully supported, right up to the faceplate; there was no gap piece to remove and so no weakening of the bed when turning the largest diameters. The cross slide was a substantial casting, fully T slotted for use as a boring or milling table, with the slots running in the same direction as the bed; its design, claimed Drummond, allowed items such as twin-cylinder engines to be bored at one setting and so made the lathe especially suitable for motor-car repairs. Two leadscrews were fitted, one provided power sliding along the bed, the other power surfacing across it. The sliding feed was selected by a domed-headed, spring-loaded lever moving in a vertical slot at the tailstock-end of the apron with neutral in the centre the upper and lower positions could be selected to move the carriage to right or left. Power surfacing (across the bed) was engaged by pulling out a knob underneath and just to the left of the cross-feed handwheel; the direction of this feed could be changed by using the normal tumble-reverse mechanism on the headstock. The arrangement of this mechanism must have given trouble for, like that on the 3.5-inch model, changes were made and the position of the control levers altered. The method of fixing the top slide to the 8 Tee-slot cross slide was, in effect, a beefed up version of that used on the 3.5 inch B Type lathe where the base of the top slide was made in two parts and the lower element aligned with a long rectangular key and formed a base on which the upper part could swivel. Whilst early versions of the lathe were arranged for drive by a separate countershaf - or from overhead line shafting, -later models were to become the company's first effort at an integrated drive system. A motor, mounted on a heavy, adjustable bracket outboard of the headstock-end plinth, drove upwards to a shaft held between bearings carried in each wall of the plinth. The shaft carried a gear (made from compressed strips of leather) that engaged with teeth cut in the rim of the flywheel. Click here for other 5-inch pictures. Other larger Drummond lathes can be found here.
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