From 1935 the Lewis Machine Tool Company of 3017 North Main Street, Los Angeles 31, California, U.S.A supplied sets of castings and associated parts from which it was possible (give reasonable workshop facilities and a degree of skill) to build a range of powered workshop equipment. Amongst the more ambitious projects offered were a 10-inch shaper, a small horizontal miller, a hacksaw and both bench and pillar drills. Other kits allowed the enthusiastic amateur, or educational workshop, to build 3.5 and 7-inch swivel machine vices, dividing centres, a countershaft drive unit, lathe tailstock turret attachment, 16 and 24-inch bandsaws, a centrifugal pump, 6-inch bench grinder, 4-inch bench vice, gas, steam and internal combustion engines and, for wood workers, a shaper (spindle moulder),  jointer (planer), 6-inch saw bench and a wood-turning lathe.
Many schools, colleges and vocational training establishments used the kits as ready-made "lesson plans" for engineering courses - a scheme designed not only to teach the students how to apply their burgeoning skills in a realistic and practical way, but also to leave the under-paid instructor  with a lovely little item to spirit away home for "minor modifications" at the end of the course.
Over the following pages extracts from the (economically-produced) wartime catalog of 1944 are reproduced.
Should any reader have pictures of their completed Lewis machine tool, the writer would be delighted to feature them in the Archive