Boye and Emmes, formerly the Schumacher & Boye Company, were formed in 1899 (the Schumacher name was dropped in 1912) and based at 2245 to 2251 Spring Grove Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. Their lathes were typical of the medium to large capacity machines of the time, having belt-driven cone-pulley headstocks with some larger types, in order to provide secure, slip-free low speeds, a "double" backgear mechanism. Machines with swings of 18", 20", 24", 26", 30", 32", 36", 42", 48" were offered with the larger sizes having a "triple-backgear" that could bring speeds down to as low as 2 r.p.m.
On lathes without a full screwcutting gearbox the designer incorporated a supplementary fine-feed drive by belt, the cone drive for which can be seen protruding from the left-hand end of the headstock spindle with the drive pulley attached to the reduction gearbox at the headstock end of the leadscrew. Besides the "direct-drive" belt feed to the power shaft, a slower positive feed could be arranged by meshing a gear on the leadscrew to one on the feed rod.
Headstock spindles were made from "the best hammered crucible steel" and ran in bronze bearings. An ordinary type of tumble reverse was fitted to the leadscrew drive and all but the largest lathes in the range were available with screwcutting by changewheels rather than a quick-change gearbox.

This double-backgeared engine lathe, with quick-change screwcutting gearbox and headstock-mounted motor was offered with swings of 18", 20", 24", 28", 32", 36", 42" and 48".  Spindle speeds were on the conservative side, with the smaller models allowed to span 9 to 392 rpm and the larger either 3 to 270 rpm or 2 to 222 r.p.m.
For 1902 this was a relatively advanced lathe with the headstock-mounted, variable-speed drive motor freeing the customer from the tyranny of having to couple up his new machine to a labyrinth of overhead line shafting and arrange suitable belt-striking rods and couplings. Just how quietly the machine ran, with a small spur gear on the end of the motor shaft coupled to a double backgear reduction arrangement, may be safely left to conjecture.
An interesting feature was the small handwheel, mounted outboard of the motor spindle, designed to let the operator turn the spindle by hand.