A different company to that founded by Bliss Charles Ames on Ash Street in Waltham, Ma. in the late 1890s, the Ames Mfg Co Chicopee, were known during the 1800s as a maker of swords and other weapons. Although little is known of Ames Chicopee machine-tool production, they must have been at the forefront of developments: an example of their gunstock copying lathe is in the London Science Museum and several examples of an early and beautifully-made 7.25" swing backgeared and screwcutting lathe have survived. Although dating the lathes shown here must be a matter for conjecture, with Ames Chicopee founded in 1810 and machine-tool production starting in 1835, they could have been made at any point from the latter date onwards. One wonders if the Ames Chicopee design had any influence upon the precision plain-turning bench lathe made by Stark in 1862 - a machine that enabled America to take the lead in the manufacture of such machines and as exemplified by Levin, Bottum, The American Watch Tool Company, B.C.Ames, Bottum, Hjorth, Potter, Pratt & Whitney, Rivett, Wade, Waltham Machine Works, Wade,  Pratt & Whitney, Rivett, Cataract, Hardinge, Elgin, Remington, Sloan & Chace, and (though now very rare) Frederick Pearce, Ballou & Whitcombe, , Sawyer Watch Tool Co., Engineering Appliances and Fenn-Sadler the "Cosa Corporation of New York" and UND.
Although at a glance very similar, each Ames Chicopee lathe has a number of significant differences showing that a programme of steady development must have been in place and so a reasonable number sold. Several design features stand out, some of which reflect contemporary practice and others unexpected diversions from it: a headstock with narrow, unbraced bearing posts (common at the time) secured not by studs and nuts but slotted-head screws; an unusually wide, beam-type gapless bed with ways that ran past the front and back faces of the headstock so allowing the carriage (with its long, equally proportioned wings) to bring the cutting tool up to the spindle nose; a carriage traverse handwheel that engaged the bed-mounted rack through a system of reduction gearing (a system that was rare at the time when a quick-action crank handle would have been expected) and a leadscrew of fine pitch (a very coarse thread being more usual) and obviously intended for the generation of threads rather than to just provide a sliding power feed. Unfortunately, as was common at the time, no swivelling top slide was fitted - though judging from the clearances involved (and the very tall cross-slide on the older example) there would have been enough room to include one. Changewheels were, like the rest of the lathe, were given a superb cosmetic finish being fully machined on both faces and retained by elegant hand-knobs. From it's rather temporary-looking mounting - a slot machined into the front of the left-hand bearing wall - the tumble-reverse mechanism may have been engineered in post-design - though if so it was neatly done. On the earlier of the two models, the one with helical backgears, the tailstock spindle is square; a tricky job to machine and fit to perfection.
From the remains of the original finish on the older example (unfortunately the newer  appears to have been polished) the maker's paint finish would seem to have been a dark green on the major castings with a red band along the front of the bed with adornment by the usual Victorian-style lining out in red and gold..