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In 1923 the "Cheltenham Works Co. Ltd. announced the RelMinor, an inexpensive but remarkably robust small lathe with a 3-inch centre height, 12-inches between centres and a 10.5-inch swing in the gap. Although the option was offered of a bolt-on backgear assembly and screwcutting, the few surviving examples, like the one on this page, tend to be just simple, low-cost plain-turning types purchased by the impecunious. For its size, the Minor had a remarkably large and hence useful 3/4" hole through the spindle, simple plain, split headstock bearings, a 3-step flat-belt drive pulley (a useful advance on the round gut-rope drive that would have been offered on similar lathes in earlier years) and a single swivelling tool slide. The latter assembly, like the unit fitted to the Round Bed Drummond, was equipped with T-slots and supported on a post clamped into a socket at the front of the saddle - and so able to be adjusted up or down to set the tool height. The leadscrew passed down the centre-line of the bed and, in the picture below, the extensions to headstock spindle and leadscrew confirm that it would have been possible, with the addition of a suitable bracket, to mount a train of screwcutting changewheels. Like that used on early Drummond lathes, the leadscrew dog clutch lever would have protruded through the front face of the headstock (in the example below the slot is blanked by the switch plate).
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