Until an example was recently donated to the museum of small machine tools kept by the American miniature-lathe maker Sherline, the 'Guilder' had faded into obscurity, with no examples thought to have survived and almost nothing in the way of contemporary advertisements or reports available to help construct anything of the machine's background.  However, recent interest in the machine has revealed that the lathe was designed and developed during the early 1930s by Mr. Walter C. Guilder (born Toledo, Ohio 1877) an engineer, former toolmaker and model-boat enthusiast who ran an engineering business specialising in: "Motor trucks, burners and third axles of his own design." Guilder intended his plain-turning (non-screwcutting) "Guilder Model Builder" miniature lathe of 3" swing and 5" between centres to be as useful as possible for the home hobbyist who required several power tools in one tiny 45 to 75 lb package that was around 15-inches long, 10-inches high and 12-inches front to back. The commercial potential of the new design was recognised by a friend, W. F. Crosby of Pelham Manor, New York, a navel architect (and later editor of the magazine "Rudder"). With the backing of Crosby and other friends production began at some unknown date in the mid 1930s, almost certainly (given the trading conditions of the time) as a part-time venture alongside Mr. Guilder's established engineering business and with a limited output. Early machines were badged after Guilder's home area,  Kingswood Park, Poughkeepsie, New York, but during 1942 he moved his factory and offices to Wilmington (a surviving business letter confirms that all his materials were in transit during March of that year) where he established what was reported as being little more than a well-equipped home-based machine shop. Even so, despite the modest facilities and additional difficulties of war-time production, the lathes continued to be manufactured and carried labels proclaiming: "Walter C. Guilder Wilmington Vermont". It then appears - though details of dates are uncertain - that a local manufacturing engineering company, H.E.Greene & Son, expressed an interest in the machine and, with Mr. Guilder having been in failing health for some (he died on January 14th, 1945), took over manufacture and badged them as: "H. E. Greene & Son Wilmington Vermont". The lathe was then advertised in "Model Railroader Magazine" from 1946 to 1948 but by the early 1950s, and probably sooner, was no longer being made. The remaining castings it is reported, were sold to an unknown person in Massachusetts.
Instead of a conventional bed the Guilder Model Maker lathe was built up on what amounted to a rectangular cast-iron plate about 7/8" thick - a similar design concept being employed some years later on the very much more complicated and ingenious German Hommel UWG lathe. Whilst the use of a simple "bed plate" allowed the Guilder be constructed very inexpensively it did require a degree of ingenuity to provide a proper drive system. In basic form the lathe was supplied with just a single headstock pulley and bolted to "plain legs" for drive by the customer's own motor but, in its more complete form, was mounted on legs to which was attached a sheet-steel plate carrying a factory-fitted, full-size, double-shaft 1/6th h.p. motor. The left-hand bed foot carried a slotted quadrant arm on which was mounted a drive system consisting a "countershaft" unit with a 6-inch diameter pulley so large in comparison with the machine that it required the lathe to be mounted on tall raiser blocks (or sited so that it overlapped the edge of a bench) to allow the necessary clearances. Concentric with the large pulley was a smaller one to drive the headstock (a simple form of compound speed reduction) whilst the pulley arm was arranged to pivot and, with the aid of a built-in handle and small hand ring nut, adjustment of both belts was easily and simultaneously set. Two pulleys, 3 and 6-inches in diameter, were provided for the headstock spindle and, to further improve the speed range, both could be interchanged with that on the motor. By juggling pulleys a speed range covering: 108, 215, 400, 600, 850, 1200 and a remarkable 3400 rpm was available; unfortunately the advertising literature contained inaccuracies in the calculations with the quoted bottom speed of 85 rpm being unavailable with the pulleys supplied. However, by substituting other standard and easily-obtained sizes the owner could quickly make up a range to suit his own particular requirements - or drive the various accessories at the correct speed.
The design of the non-backgeared headstock was very simple with the 1/2-inch diameter spindle bored to accept a 1/4" diameter rod and two decently-long plain parallel bronze bearings of the split type with bolts to close down the gap. A single overhung drive pulley was mounted on the spindle's left-hand end with thrust was absorbed in both directions by fibre washers fitted each side of the front bearing. Both headstock and tailstock fitted into a 1-inch wide slot machined down the length of the bed with the headstock bolted down from underneath with two 5/16" set-screws. On a small but important point, whilst most makers of simple lathes were content to drill two unprotected oil holes through the top of each headstock bearing, or use straight-feed, flip-top oil cups, on the Guilder the makers went to the trouble of specifying flip-top oilers with a wick feed so ensuring that the bearings received only clean lubricant. Although today the simple (and cheap-to-manufacture) "overhung-pulley" arrangement is in widespread use, when first introduced it was ignored by conservative manufacturers until they were persuaded of its adequate performance and the longevity of the headstock bearings.
The motor drove not only the 0.25" bore headstock spindle but, from its other end, a 0.25" capacity drill press mounted at the tailstock end of the bed. An electrical switch was built neatly into the bed casting just in front of the headstock.
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