The earliest known publicity photograph of a Boxford this 1948 Model C has 3-step flat belt drive to the headstock, no headstock or countershaft belt-run guards, a tailstock clamped to the bed by a simple vertical bolt through the clamp plate and the electrical switch on the headstock-end bed foot. The collet tray clamped to the bed at the headstock end hold not only the collets but the draw tube, spindle insert adaptor and spindle-thread protector.
On the very first examples the lathe was clamped to the stand by two in-line bolts that passed upwards into the aluminium bed feet. The next version, as shown immediately below, used three bolts with two being set across the bed and passing through a flange on the inner face of the foot - with the other on the foot's centre line. The final type, and found on most machines, was a simpler arrangement of two bolts with one at the front and the other at the back of each foot.

Early Boxford Model A with screwcutting gearbox and power cross feed. By the early 1950 the belt runs were completely guarded, the tailstock had a captive locking handle working though a cam and the electrical switch had been moved from the bed foot to a more convenient and safer position on a bracket bolted to the headstock.

Mk. 2 AUD with screwcutting gearbox, power sliding and surfacing feeds, single-lever engagement of backgear and a spindle lock button.

Mk. 2 headstock with a single lever to engage and disengage backgear. For safety the lever could be locked down with a Allen screw and was also connected to a micro-switch that cut the power if the handle was moved whilst the spindle was turning.

Virtually unchanged since it's introduction in the 1930s on the South Bend 9-inch, the power-feed apron has proved capable of a long, trouble-free life

Another reliable component unaltered from first to last the screwcutting gearbox had neither hardened gear nor oil-bath lubrication.