Based in the town of Louvroil, a commune in the Département du Nord of northern France close to the Belgium border, the Smal  Machine Tool Company had their factory at 60, Route D'Avesnes, a site now occupied by a supermarket. In addition, to give their products something of an edge, the company also had an office accommodation address in Paris, allowing the machines to be badged as "Smal-Paris"
Little is know of the Smal, save that they made lathes and a range of conventional milling machines - with all the known surviving sales literature all dating from the 1940s and 1950s.
One machine of which complete details are known is the Model S.F.U.2, a horizontal, knee-type miller of a design typical of its age and possibly inspired by and hence very similar to those by the Victoria Company in England, especially their Model U.2. - a machine also built under licence by Pedersen in Denmark.
An up-to-date design, the Smal was fitted with the far more rigid dovetail-form of overarm that was common by the early 1950s - this replacing the former round type that could slip under very high loads - and featured a spindle-speed gearbox built into the main column with control levers grouped together on its right-hand face. Machined with a No. 4 Morse taper socket, the spindle was driven through its range of twelve speeds by a 5 h.p. motor, the drive passing through a clutch controlled by a long lever, one being positioned, for efficiency, at each side of the column. Speeds could be had in two ranges, either 33.5 to 800 r.p.m. or 53 to 1250 r.p.m.
Able to be swung 45° each side of central, the 1250 x 300 mm table had a longitudinal travel of 870 mm, in traverse of 270 mm and vertically of 475 mm. Twelve rates of power feed were fitted, these being driven by a universally-jointed and splined (Carden) shaft from a take-off on the main drive. Like the spindle, a choice of two feeds ranges was available: longitudinally from either 10.6 to 250 mm or 17 to 400 mm per minute and vertically from 3.35 to 80 mm or 5,3 to 125 mm per minute. A rapid feed, for just the longitudinal direction, was available at extra cost and, driven by a separate 0.5 h.p. motor, set at a rate 2000 mm per minute.
A small range of accessories was listed that included a swivel-base machine vice, a universal gear-driven dividing attachment, a double-swivel vertical head and a rotary table. Whether the makers also offered such common items as supplied by other makers such as an ordinary vertical head driven from the horizontal spindle, a slotting head, a high-speed, self-powered vertical head or a fixed vertical head for rack and worm milling is not known.
Weighing 1600 kg when fitted with the normal accessories, the Smal Type S.F.U.2 occupied an area some 1700 mm wide, 1620 mm deep and stood 1610 mm high.
Si vous avez un fraiseuse Smal ou des publications à ce sujet, veuillez contacter Tony Griffiths. Je vous remercie.