Schaffner milling machines were manufactured in Switzerland by E. Schaffner AG. in Schönenwerd, a rural area between Lucerne to the south-east and Basel to the north-west.  The Company made both grinders and millers, though the latter were limited in types and sizes and comprised a variety of lighter, simpler types - the smaller versions of which were rather along the lines of those made by Tom Senior in England -  i.e. they did not in any way rival such as, for example, the American Cincinnati Company and their vast array of heavy models. However, in their class, Shaffner millers did exhibit an outstanding build quality and fine cosmetic finish - with owners reporting that these were very accurate, easy to use, smooth-running and quiet-running machines. In addition, Schaffner offered a wide variety of optional extras that allowed their machines to be adapted to production use, with numbers built to special order for customers requiring a miller adapted to their particular needs. Known Schaffner models of the regularly catalogued type include the Series F in the form of the production millers, F7, F7-Pnl-Z, F17; the unusual ram-head F25 Universal with both full vertical and horizontal capacity (and a knee-cum-table arrangement similar to that of the Deckel F-Types); the Series W as the simple W6 stub-arbor and the W7 and W7G conventional horizontal types (French text and German text); the larger W12 and W14 Universals and the W25 Production. Many of these were available in different versions for regular workshop use - for example with table travels operated by hand lever, screw or power feeds - or fitted with a variety of (usually hydraulically operated) programmed control systems for use in production plants.
Pictured below is the Schaffner model W6 hand-lever-operated, "stub-spindle" horizontal miller,  a superbly-built, very rigid and heavy machine but of essentially simple design and operation. It was intended solely for production use and, lacking a bracing overarm to support a full-length cutter-holding arbor, was confined to cutters held in its collet holding (E32 or W20) spindle nose. Although the cutter-holding arrangement limited the number of operations it was capable of tackling it would have been, when fitted with jigs, indexing heads, the maker's swivelling vertical slide and special "template milling device" (or any special set-up that the factory's toolroom could devise) perfectly capable of performing many simple machining operations and, in addition, would have required only the presence of a low-paid, unskilled operator.
Fitted as standard with a 125 x 400 mm table with three T-slots and a longitudinal travel of 190 mm, across of 90 mm and vertically of 120 mm, the W6 was sold complete and ready to run with its 2-speed, 1/1.5 h.p. 3-phase motor driving through an all-V-belt countershaft arrangement to give twelve speeds that spanned a most usefully wide range of: 225, 390, 450, 700, 780, 1030, 1180, 1400, 1850, 2060 and 3700 r.p.m.
Coolant was built in with a 0.1 h.p. motor and pump mounted in the base of the main column and the fluid held within a tank integral with the foot.
The W6 occupied a floor space of approximately 800 by 900 mm and weighed, with basic equipment, around 280 kg.
A full specification sheet can be found at the bottom of the page.