Aside from never having heard of Porter-McLeod as a lathe builder, I'd never heard of Hatfield, Massachusetts. I looked that town up. It is about 20 miles North of Springfield, MA, and has about 3300 inhabitants. Not a big town, and certainly not in the heart of a machine tool building center like Worcester or Springfield.
Conceivably, P-M was building something else altogether in their plant prior to WWII. With WWII, they may have gotten into building engine lathes for the war effort. The overall design is a basic late 1930's-40's engine lathe with a few differences. Notably, their neighboring lathe builder, Reed & Prentice in Worcester was using handlevers to work the feed clutches. Hendey, another New England machine tool builder, was also using levers to work the feed clutches. The knurled knobs to engage/disengage the feed clutches was an older design which most of the lathe builders by WWII had abandoned in favor of handlevers.
The overall design of the engine lathe is kind of generic, a husky piece of iron with lines not too distant from the other engine lathe builders of that time.
It could be that P-M was building paper mill or textile mill machinery (not unlikely for a New England shop in that era). Making the switch to building engine lathes was probably a big switch, requiring lots of tooling (jigs and fixtures), but if P-M already had a shop equipped with boring mills, planers, lathes and turret lathes, gear hobbers, precision grinders, and a force of skilled machinists and machine tool operators (for production work), they were halfway there. The start of manufacturing the kind of medium duty generic engine lathes like the one in this thread was no small thing. Getting a design worked out in a hurry for a new lathe with no prior models to evolve it from, and getting patterns and coreboxes made in a hurry had to have been a real feat in itself. I find myself wondering if P-M did not work some arrangement with Reed & Prentice or another established lathe builder who had to produce a certain number of lathes for the War Production Board. Perhaps some of the major patterns and coreboxes from another established lathe builder were used for the major castings of the P-M lathes.
Knowing what it took to build a lathe of this sort, P-M had to have a large and well established plant. In a town which has all of 3300 souls inhabiting it, my guess is P-M drew on the surrounding communities, such as Springfield, for more of a workforce. New England abounded with firms producing all manner of precision machined products from small arms and sewing machines to major machine tools. Having fine craftsmen in the form of patternmakers, molders, machinists and toolmakers in large numbers was a given in that era.
This past week, my wife wanted to go to the antique flea market at Brimfield, MA. I drove her there and we browsed until it all became a blur. Several things stood out in my mind. One was the huge number of wood foundry patterns, matchplate patterns, and coreboxes the antique dealers were selling there. All sorts of patterns for all sorts of parts. I felt sad in seeing the patterns on several levels, not the least of which was the fact that the average person has no knowledge of what a foundry pattern is, who a patternmaker was, and the industry and way of life that is gone forever. As I looked at the endless numbers of patterns and coreboxes, I kept thinking of all the shops that once were in New England, all making machinery, machine tools, plant equipment and much more.
The other thing that served to remind me of New England's past was the numbers of factory carts still labelled from different departments in spinning, weaving and dying plants.
At the first area we hit, I found a vendor who had a mess of Starrett and Brown and Sharpe tools. I bought a new Starrett 436 1" mike to give to my next apprentice. The dealer was a bit of a wise guy, and while he knew there was no huge demand for micrometers, he was asking a young fortune for machine tool worklights- knowing what the current fad is. I found the flea market kind of depressing, seeing the steampunk kitsch made from good gauges, lubricators and fittings and tools. I also found the flea market depressing as it reminded me of New England's past. Seeing this thread about the Porter McLeod lathe has carried this line of thought along for me. New England was the cradle of inventiveness and precision, but no more. P-M was probably a typical New England shop in a nice New England village. I'd like to learn more about P-M as a company.