Founded in 1906 by R. E. Porter, G. G. Porter and F. E. Cable as a jobbing machine shop in Syracuse, N.Y., Porter Cable are still active today, selling a range of hand tools, wood lathes and associated products. In 1960 they joined forces with another tool Company, Delta, though the products still retained their separate brand identities.
Having begun by building conventional engine, toolroom and production lathes, during the 1920s Porter-cable turned their attention (most successfully) to hand and power-tool manufacturer - though the lathes did continue, albeit in the form of production machines only, until 1930s. Their entire output appears to have been directed at industry, with no attempt to sell machines into the amateur or repair workshop markets; as a result, as the conventional engine lathes were probably made for less than ten years (and the production types all scrapped), they are now rare. In addition to the lathes, in early years a shaper was also manufactures, a design taken over  by Logan and sold as their own.
Invented and patented by G.G.Porter and F.E.Porter (applied for on May 22nd 1908 and granted on the 19th of December 1911 No. 1,012,430) , their attachment found considerable success and enabled old but still working horizontal milling machine to be converted into a useful (if limited in metal-removing capacity) vertical. Porter-cable made more than one size of attachment, of which two types have so far been identified and are shown below.
Porter-Cable were not alone in this market for, during the 1920s and 1930s, other makers offered similar attachments including Bridgeport with their "Master Milling Attachment", the "Tree" from the makers of Racine millers; the "Marvin"; the "Halco" and Kearney & Trecker with their Dalrae-manufactured "Midgetmill" and "Speedmill" units.