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Flexispeed were based, originally, at 5 South Lane near the centre of Sheffield, England and, in 1947, were offering their first product, a very basic plain-turning model-engineering lathe. This machine was to prove a popular machine that, together with a small horizontal miller, was to continued in production for nearly fifty years passing through several changes of ownership and numerous alterations to the design. By the early 1960s the company, owned at the time by a Mr. L. Lewis, were marketing the machine from 1 Smithy Wood Road, Sheffield 8 and describing themselves as "Manufacturers of: lathes, chucks & accessories, bench milling machines (and) hand shapers". Interestingly, this was a domestic address, and just round the corner from the Portass factory (owned by the brother of the Adept works) - though no hint of a connection between the three companies was ever hinted at. After this the Flexispeed appears to have gone through several sets of hands the lathes marketed variously as the , Meteor, Hector, Norfolk and Simat 101 - and finally the Perris, in which form it was adapted, almost unaltered, as the first Cowells lathe.
Although very much more heavily constructed, the early Flexispeed was not dissimilar to the "Super Adept" made by another branch of the Portass family, F.W. Portass, whose factory, in Sellers Street just off Abbeydale Road, was only half a mile away from the original Flexispeed works. In 1947 Adept were quoting 12 months for delivery and there was obviously room for competition - accordingly the Mk. 1 Flexispeed, some 13-inch long, was a very simple plain-turning device with a 15/8" centre height, a capacity between centres of 51/4 " a flat-topped, 13/8" wide V-edged bed with a 43/4-inch capacity gap. The 1/2" diameter headstock spindle was bored through 1/4", had a 1/2" B.S.F. (British Standard Fine) nose thread and ran in split plain bearings closed down by set screws. A single swivelling toolslide was fitted together with a 2-speed pulley designed to be driven by a miniature "M-type" V belt or a round leather (or plastic) belt; both the headstock and set-over tailstock were fitted with "short" No. 0 Morse taper centres.
In 1951 a Mk. 2 machine was introduced that boasted a considerably improved specification: although at first the original headstock and spindle assembly were retained (with the 15/8" centre height) a choice of 8 or 12 inches between centres was offered and both a backgear and a neatly engineered worm-drive fine feed to the carriage were incorporated - the latter assembly granted Patent number 642,260). This was to prove a very much more versatile and useable lathe especially when, at some as-yet-to-be-determined point, the headstock was made a separate casting with the centre height increased to 2 inches (though the spindle and bearings remained unaltered). The new lathe had an all-steel backgear assembly mounted on an eccentric shaft, with a reduction ratio of 4 : 1; the flat-topped, V-edged bed was of the same cantilever pattern as before (allowing it to be bolted down without distortion) but, at 11/2", was just a little wider. Capacity in the bed gap was 51/4", the ways carefully finished by hand scraping and drive to the carriage by a two-stage worm-wheel drive - one worm was carried on the end of the headstock spindle, the other on the end of the 7/16" diameter, square-thread 12 t.p.i. Leadscrew. However, there was power feed towards the headstock only, with a handwheel for manual advance and retraction of the carriage. A compound slide rest was supplied as standard with the cross slide carrying a single (central) T slot and the top slide fitted with a 4-way toolpost. As standard the lathe was supplied complete with simple sheet-metal guards over the headstock and leadscrew drive mechanisms, a 4" diameter faceplate and hard and soft No. 0 Morse centres. To cater for all sections of the market the Mk. 2 was available in four versions: the Model "A" had backgear and auto traverse, the "B" auto traverse only, the "C" backgear only and the "D" as a plain lathe with just hand feed to the carriage. Optional extras included a tiny bench-mount countershaft with a 5-inch driven pulley, a 4-jaw chuck (with its mounting thread cut into the main body), a plain vertical milling slide, fixed steady, tailstock die holder and a tailstock chuck. In 1951 the Flexispeed Model "A" was listed at £11 : 9s : 6d with the countershaft £1 : 7s : 6d the 4-jaw chuck £1 : 17s : 6d. All these changes left the simple Adept far behind but, surprisingly, and only because of its considerable price advantage, the Adept kept selling.
The next incarnation of the Flexispeed came in the 1960s - with identical example badged both "Flexispeed" and "Meteor" - and was produced after the company had moved to Southampton, occupying premises in the 'Town Quay Works'. This model had comprehensive guarding of belts and gears and a heavier, though no wider bed with a hollowed-out section below the headstock designed to accept a dog clutch on the leadscrew. An optional and, in relative terms, very expensive screwcutting attachment was available; with its 10 changewheels this accessory added 48% to the basic (1965) price of £31 : 9 : 6d. Even when the changewheels were set up with a compound reduction for a fine feed to the carriage the relative coarseness of their pitch (for the size of lathe) meant that slowest rate obtainable was too fast; to get round this the worm-and-wheel drive to the leadscrew was left in place - a most unusual arrangement. Backgear was also offered and, when fitted together with the screwcutting attachment, made the machine into a very effective lathe able to successfully turn a wide variety of work. At this point the backgears were all contained within the span of the headstock bearings and not, like earlier and later versions, straddling that to the left. Although sold with the Flexispeed name cast into the bed the only advertisements seen for this later version show the "Meteor 11" model, but it is known that when the lathe was supplied with a single tool slide and without the automatic carriage traverse it was known as the Meteor 1.
The pitch of the leadscrew was coarsened from 12 to 8 t.p.i. with the fine feed rate of the carriage, using the original worm-and-wheel arrangement, set at 0.0015" per revolution of the spindle. Whilst the turning capacity of the lathe was unchanged the finish was improved by the use of chrome-plated handwheels and levers - and then promptly ruined by castings painted in a ghastly light-blue Hammerite.
By the end of the 1970s "The Norfolk Lathe & Tool Company Ltd" of Royston House, North Walsham had taken over the lathe and offered it both as a finished unit and a kit of parts for home assembly. Manufacture and marketing eventually passed into the hands of Alphabeta Engineering of Gamers Way Industrial Estate, North Walsham, Norfolk when it became known as the Simat 101; in an attempt to make the lathe self-contained it was offered in a "deluxe" version with a motor and simple countershaft unit made from propriety "Picador" parts. S. Tyzack & Son of London, well known for their tool sales and lathe factoring service, also marketed a version of the 1950s Flexispeed, the "Zyto Model F".
Whilst Flexispeed prospered by keeping their lathes up-to-date with the ever-increasing demands of model engineers, Adept appear to have become stuck in a time warp and, until the end in the early 1960s, offered the same machines as introduced in 1931 and 1933.
If any reader has a version of the Flexispeed or its variants not illustrated the writer would be interested to hear from you.
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