What on earth?? It's a bird! It's a lathe! It's...

[jakes_66]

This one has me stumped! Any ideas?

 

[MrWhoopee]

First generation live tooling?

 

[Aaron_W]

I'm thinking it is a fancy milling attachment for some special purpose, possibly for cutting grooves or spirals.

The Rivett lathe catalog offered a traditional milling attachment and a much more complex transverse milling attachment that was powered, and could be set up for a variety of functions.

Here it is set up as a threading mill

 

[Dave Smith]

very very interesting ---some more pictures would be nice. is it yours?
Dave

 

[jakes_66]

It's not mine, I noticed it in a local auction sale listing.

 

[Dave Smith]

thanks
definately buy it!! you can't let someone else have all the fun of restoring it and not having it in your shop.
Dave

 

[Dave Smith]

for perspective, approx overall dimentions? --I'm sure it will go cheap unless some other bidder is intriqued like me and has to have it. Dave

 

[JimDawson]

Armature lathe

 

[markba633csi]

Yep, early armature/commutator servicing lathe

 

[Aaron_W]

Armature lathe

Spool of wire goes on the spindle running perpendicular to the bed?

The only armature lathe I've seen (photos) was a modified Atlas lathe and didn't have that vertical fixture.