Manufactured by Swayne Robinson & Co. of Richmond, Indiana, USA and described by them as "A shop in itself", the 4-inch centre height "Series 200" lathe was well made from proper materials - only cast iron and steel was used - and could be ordered with either 18 or 24-inches between centres. The lathe had no backgear, or screwcutting, and was based on a twin-rail bed made from ground and polished 1-inch diameter solid steel bars with the carriage and its simple, non-compound slide rest (also running on twin bars) moved along the bed by a hand-operated leadscrew set just inboard of the front bed bar. The socket holes for the bars in the headstock and tailstock were reamed to size in jigs.
Both headstock and tailstock had a No. 1 Morse taper whilst the headstock spindle, with a 3/8" hole, ran in Timken taper roller bearings and carried a proper cast-iron 4-speed V-belt pulley driven from a neatly-constructed integral countershaft unit - though the 1/4 or 1/3 hp 1700 rpm motor had to be mounted separately on the bench behind. Spindle speeds ran from 165 to 1000 rpm.
A collection of useful accessories was available including a mica undercutter on a proper cast-iron bracket for electric motor and dynamo restoration work; an extension section for the bed to allow 36-inch long wood turning to be undertaken; a sliding and swivelling wood-turning rest and a simple 1.5-inch travel top slide with two tool slots (one at the front and one at the side) cut into the main body of the casting.
If you have a Swayne-Robinson, or can offer photographs or sales literature of this and other Swayne-Robinson machine tools, the writer would be very interested to hear from you..