Very interesting!
I too have an old Rhodes. Have never been able to find a serial number, but I have always thought it was late 1920ish. It is a Hartford-made machine - prior to their move to Waltham, MA. Like the one posted, it has three T slots in the table. There is a lip at the bottom of the main casting, but it extends only 1/2 inch or so from the vertical way face. The one Dean posted has a much longer lip, which makes little sense to me as it seems to serve no real purpose. The lip on mine ends with the cast base. The long lip on the shaper in the post extends well over the base casting, and is supported only by the chip tray. Or maybe that’s not a separate chip tray, but instead is part of the base casting. Mine does not have a chip tray - either separate or integral with the base or the main casting.
Looking at the pics on Tony’s lathes.co.uk site, I see that the vertical ways (later machines) extend right to the base. Mine stop well above the lip, as with Dean’s pics.
Both Dean’s and mine were made strictly as lineshaft machines. The later Waltham-made machines apparently had fixings for an electric motor cast onto the base.
The motor on mine is ancient - looks older than Dean’s, but who knows when they were converted from lineshaft drive. Everything - motor, two V belt jackshafts with user-made babbitt pillow blocks, final three-step cast iron pulley for flat belt to machine - is mounted on a heavy pivoting angle iron framework.
As I said, no serial numbers that I can find. But I do remember seeing 66 (or maybe 99?) stamped into some of the parts, which I have assumed was to identify parts for re-assembly after painting.
Lots of history here to decipher.
John
