Pre-1920 compound slide. This unit was made in different versions to suit the 7" and 9" swing lathes. The 7" version had 4.5" of movement on the cross slide and 3.5" on the top - whilst that for the larger lathe had 5.25" on the cross slide and 4.5" on the top. An adjustable stop was fitted to the cross-slide movement, the micrometer dials could be zeroed and the unit was well designed with a 4-bolt end plate to the cross slide and hardened thrust washers to each side of the feed screw thrust. It was made of the finest quality materials and beautifully finished - but the top slide was limited to 45 degrees of swivel each side of the zero line.

The next version of the compound slide, current in the 1920 and early 1930s, had slightly 17/16" diameter larger micrometer dials and a rounded front edge to the top slide with recessed gib-strip adjustment screws - but seems to have lost the hand-scraped finish of the original.

By the late 1930s the slide had a block-type top slide casting and micrometer dials with parallel faces.

Although the 1940s version of the compound slide may have looked a more prosaic item in comparison with its glittering predecessors, it was considerably improved in several areas: the method of clamping the slide to the bed was changed to give a much broader support (it had originally been held by a single, central T slot; the change is illustrated below); the micrometer dials were at last of a reasonable size for a precision lathe - a full two inches  - with the cross slide plate triangulated to support the dial housing; feed screws were hardened, ran in long bronze nuts and were supported in ball races where they passed through their end plates; the top slide could now be swivelled through a complete circle with the degrees graduations engraved into the flat surface of the cross slide; this also allowed the top slide to bear against a much wider ways instead of being less well supported at the extremes of its travel.

On the left is the method adopted in the 1940s to more securely hold the slide to the bed. The original method, using a single central T slot, is shown on the right.