Pictured as it appeared in 1939 the 210 mm centre height by 1000 or 1500 mm between-centres Italian Alfeo lathe was a heavy (1.800 to 1900 kg) precision machine with an enormously deep, 375 mm wide and rigid bed. The front V-way was notable for a European machine in having an especially wide outer surface and its shorter inside section arranged more steeply than normal (on the lines probably pioneered by the American Wade company) to better absorb thrust. Heavy transverse walls braced the bed with the gaps between running through to large elliptical holes at the rear for swarf clearance. The makers claimed that the bed was scraped to "dead precision" and carried a saddle with especially long wings.
The drive system was typical of good contemporary design with the 5 h.p. motor carried in the base of the headstock-end plinth and driving up to the unusually long and narrow all-geared headstock by 4 V belts. The input shaft, built into the top part of the bed and supported on a roller race immediately inboard of the drive pulley and a ball race at the other end, carried a double multi-plate clutch with one used for forward rotation and the other reverse. Electrical start, stop and reverse was controlled through the operation of a rod parallel to and below the leadscrew that, in common with most other designs of the same type, carried duplicated operation levers: one by the screwcutting gear box and the other (where it could be easily reached by the operator from a normal working position) on the right-hand face (and moving with) the apron. 12 speeds were provided running from 16 to 800 r.p.m in geometrical progression and controlled by three levers on the front face of the headstock. From the input shaft the drive continued through two ball-bearing supported layshafts, one directly above the other - a layout that allowed the headstock to be unusually long and narrow. The main spindle was especially massive, with a 48-mm bore, and hardened on its threaded-nose; it ran in large-diameter parallel-bore bronze bearings each contained within a tapered housing by screwed rings and adjustable for clearance by slackening and tightening rings at opposite ends. The headstock gears were all in chrome-nickel steel, hardened and pressure lubricated by a supply of oil lifted (by a gear pump on the end of the input shaft) from a reservoir located just above the motor.
The screwcutting gearbox was of the Norton quick-change pattern controlled by a sliding tumbler selector and two levers: together with the "special-steel" precision leadscrew it could generate 48 English threads from "5/16" to 56 t.p.i., 34 metric from 0.375 to 16 mm, 24 diametral from 7.5 to 56 and 12 modular from 0.75 to 4 could be generated. The sliding feed rate varied from 0.075 to 2.25 mm per revolution of the spindle. The changewheels were contained within a heavy cast-aluminium case but, instead of a positive and safe lock, only a spring clip held it closed.
The carriage assembly was entirely conventional but with the advantage of a quick-action lever to engage both sliding and surfacing feeds through an overload-limited clutch; the handwheel for manual feed was on the right-hand side of the apron, away from burning chips. The compound slide rest had only a "short" cross slide, with a cast-iron extension cover to protect the end of the feed-screw, and the zeroing micrometer dials were, for a lathe with pretensions to be a toolroom machine, of a barely acceptable diameter.
A coolant pump was bolted to the top face of the chip tray at the tailstock-end of the bed and picked up fluid from a drain tank cast into the central section of the tray.
The tailstock was heavily constructed and clamped down to the bed by two bolts; the barrel had self-eject for the No. 3 Morse taper centre and locked by a powerful internal split-barrel clamp set a little further back from the front than normal.