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SIM was the abbreviation for 'Societe les Innovations Mecaniques', a Company based in Moret-Loing-et-Orvanne, France, a Company wound up in 1998.
Not an "engine" lathe for general workshop use, the SIM T5 was intended for production use. Hence, it could not produce threads but was equipped instead with power longitudinal and cross feeds - each fitted with four micrometer-adjustable stops. Thus, a repeat production job could be set up with the necessary cuts already arranged and an unskilled operator employed to do the work of loading and unloading a job. In addition to a 4-way toolpost, a second multi-holder rear toolpost was also fitted.
The lathe, intended for continuous heavy work, was very strongly built with the bed and base formed as a one-piece casting in iron, with multiple internal ribs to add stiffness. Bedways - and the cross-feed screw were hardened and ground.
Although strongly built, the lathe was of limited capacity; the swing was 13.75 inches and the capacity between centres just 20.5 inches. With a 1-inch bore, the headstock spindle was in a case-hardened chrome-nickel steel, ran in three high-precision roller bearings, and, driven by a powerful 7.5 h.p. motor, had eight speeds of 180, 250, 355, 500, 710, 1000, 1400, 2000 and 2800 r.p.m.
Nine longitudinal power feeds of 0.0015, 0.002, 0.003, 0.004, 0.006, 0.008, 0.0012, 0.0016 and 0.024 inches per rev were available with the power cross feed rates set (as usual on this class of lathe) at half the longitudinal.
The lathe was 65 inches long, 32.5 inches wide, 53.5 inches height and weighed 2880 lbs (1.28 tons).
Rather oddly, the "SIM" lathe was a 1960s addition to the usual rather limited selection offered by Pratt & Whitney. Known for their very wide variety of machine tools, P & W never concentrated on lathes but instead contented themselves with what might be described - relative to the size of the company - as a toe-in-the-water approach. Discounting the Pratt & Whitney's ranges of plain-turning bench precision, capstan, spinning, cutting-off, pattern-makers' and simple hand-turning and drilling types, their 399-page brochure for 1891 included just 16 pages that listed conventional backgeared and screwcutting lathes (generally referred to in the USA as the "engine" type, but BGSC (backgeared and screwcutting in the UK). Models listed included ones with 10-inch, 14-inch, 16-inch, and 24-inch swings.
By 1917 the range had shrunk to just five models of backgeared and screwcutting "engine" lathes - two being of cone-head type with flat-belt drive and a 10-inch version described as a 'Toolmakers'' model. A pair of 'ordinary' engine 14-inch and 16-inch lathes could be had with either a cone-head or all-geared headstock.
By the late 1920s and into the early 1930s, the range had changed to become the well-made, very much more robust Model B types with swings of 13, 16 and 20 inches.By the late 1940s, the range had changed to the improved Model C, with just three engine types listed, these having swings of 12, 14 and 16-inches.
Heavy industrial lathes dedicated to production-only use have included the Liecht, Porter Cable, Porter Cable Carbo, Smallpeice, Sebastian, Tovaglieri, 'Hogarth', UMA, Chard, Eugen Weisser Gerbrüder Heineman, and Bridgeford..
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