Around 3.5-inch centre height, and 20 inches between centres, the U.N.D. was a precision bench lathe* distinguished from others of the same genre by a dividing attachment, complete with an indexing plate, built into the front face of its plain-bearing headstock. Only four surviving examples of the U.N.D. are known; one if fitted with a slide rest of the correct type from a late-model Cataract precision bench lathe - while that on another is from a very much cheaper Goodell-Pratt lathe. The latter U.N.D., by the appearance of its many home-made accessories and considerable wear, had enjoyed a hard and productive life.
Unusually for a lathe of the late 19th and early 20th century, the 3-step flat-belt headstock pulley was overhung and, as the headstock spindle with a gear on its end fnished well inside it, it may originally have housed an epicyclic-type speed reduction unit. Another seldom-found fitting is a built-in headstock-mounted dividing attachment, the cover over the centre part of the spindle presumably guarding a worm wheel.
Unfortunately, with an absence of sales literature, it is impossible to tell anything of the maker's background - although it is confirmed that two of the four known examples survivors came from a long-time employees of the University Of Notre Dame - and the lathe is likely to be one of a small batch assembled by students as part of a project. One example is in the hands of the grandson of an employee who had headed up many construction jobs at the university and its understood that he acquired it as it was going to be thrown away.
Notre Dame was (and still is) well known for its interest in things mechanical and in 1939 research into metallurgy and allied sciences was supported by the establishment of a fellowship in by the gift of $15,000 from Mr. J. J, O'Brien, owner of the nearby South Bend Lathe Works.
If you have a UND lathe the writer would be interested to hear from you.
*Including: Levin, Bottum, American Watch Tool Company, Bausch & Lomb, B.C.Ames, Cataract, Crystal Lakes, Derbyshire, Elgin, Hardinge, Hjorth, W.H.Nichols, Potter, Pratt & Whitney, Remington, Rivett, Sloan & Chace, U.N.D., Van Norman, Wade, Waltham Machine Works, and (though now very rare) , Frederick Pearce, Ballou & Whitcombe, Sawyer Watch Tool Co., Engineering Appliances, Fenn-Sadler, and the "Cosa Corporation of New York".