One hesitates to say that this is a "typical" home-made lathe, for any machine such as this - even a relatively simple backgeared but plain-turning type -  takes a considerable effort to produce. However, the usual questions remain: when might it have been built? Although the headstock has what appears to be a 3-step pulley to take a modern V-belt (so dating it post 1930) the grooved are almost half-round, hinting perhaps that it might have been intended for drive by a round leather rope. Is it composed of castings salvaged from a damaged production model formed into something useable again? The answer must be 'quite possibly' - for the bed appears to be lengths of machined steel bar screwed together while the headstock, with its bolted-on backgear, sits on a raiser block to increase the centre height (this part, if home-made, would surely have been correctly cast to the required depth). The compound slide-rest assembly has a commercial look about it, though obviously modified to get the toolpost up to the right height. And why did he go to such trouble to fabricate such elegant bed feet? The leadscrew - seeming to have an ordinary rather than a proper Acme or even square thread - runs down the back of the bed. Did he copy a design where this was the case? We shall never know...