The Bond's Maximus horizontal miller was very similar to that offered by the Pooles Tool Company of Nottingham and was probably built by one of the many small engineering companies in the area to the north and east of Derby.
A simple, 108 lb machine designed for use by model engineers it was intended to sit on the front edge of a wok bench so that the vertical feed screw for the knee did not have to pass downwards though the bench top. The table was a useful 14 inches long and 5.125 inches wide and had a longitudinal travel of 10.5 inches, a traverse of 4 inches and a vertical rise and fall of 7 inches. Non of the table's feed screws was fitted with a micrometer collar.
The spindle ran in a plain bronze bearings the tapered front being some 1.75 inches long (and from 1.125 to 1-inch in diameter) whilst the more lightly loaded rear was a parallel bush 1-inch in diameter and 1.5-inches long. The nose of the spindle was bored No. 2 Morse taper and hollowed out to a diameter of 3/8" for its full length. The round overarm was 1.125-inches in diameter and the drop bracket carried a plain 3/8-inch diameter bush to fit the end of the arbor.
The machine was originally supplied with a 1-inch wide 3-step flat belt pulley with diameters of 5-inches, 4-inches and 3-inches; no countershaft was offered but the makers did list a matching pulley that the buyer could use in one of his own construction.
The miller was approximately 19.5 inches high, 19-inches wide and 21.5-inches front to back.
Although a simple device, this machine was no bargain; in 1965 it was offered for £65 : 0 : 0d, with the essential 3-step countershaft pulley £4 : 3 : 6d extra - a total of £69 : 3 : 6d. Today (2003), that price is equal to just a few pence short of £1000 - and at the time was only £1 : 11 : 6d less than that asked for the very much more complicated backgeared and screwcutting Myford ML7.lathe..