Oliver lathes were made in Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA by the Oliver Machinery Company and, with sales offices in New York, St.Louis, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Denver, Slat lake City, Seattle and Manchester, England, very widely distributed.
Grand Rapids is a major centre for the manufacture of wooden furniture and Oliver, who have been in business for many years, are famous for a product line which has spanned everything from electric glue pots to the very highest quality, heavy-duty wood-lathes and many other types of wood-working machines - their massive wood-turning lathes being especially well known.
Oliver metal-turning lathes were of excellent quality but utterly conventional design, and based on inverted V beds with 8-speed, plain-bearing headstocks and, on the larger geared-head lathes, the option of Timken taper roller bearings.
By the late 1930s numerous drive systems were available, from simple bolt-on, flat-belt drive countershaft units to more modern designs where the motor, contained within the base of the headstock cabinet leg, drove the headstock by (on some versions at least) a "silent chain" through a clutch positioned on the headstock input shaft. On these lathes the clutch could be operated by two levers, both on a common shaft, one mounted low down, on the left-hand side of the headstock, and the other fastened to the right-hand side of the apron and travelling with it.
In a form of specially-developed white metal the plain-headstock bearings were claimed by the makers to be replaceable without the need for scraping in or alignment. All the gears in the headstock, apron and screwcutting gearbox were in steel and the leadscrews were matched to a master made by Pratt & Whitney
The 12" x 26" lathe, almost certainly a popular choice for schools, colleges, repair and general maintenance shops and had a bed could be ordered in several different lengths, from 3 to 8 feet long. Unfortunately a detachable gap piece was not on the options' list for this machine - but all the larger models could be so ordered. The lathe was fitted with a useful 15/16" bore spindle, which ended in a 21/8" diameter, 8 t.p.i thread, with a modest maximum collet capacity of 7/8". Another modest provision was the employment of rather small taper (stated as a No. 2 Morse in sales literature but also found as a non-standard type in several machines in both headstock and tailstock - where a No. 3 Morse would have been so very much more useful. The input shaft to the headstock was driven at 500 rpm by a 1 HP motor which, in combination with the headstock gearing,  gave 8 speeds spanning 26 to 620 rpm.
An ordinary tumble reverse was fitted to the drive from headstock to gearbox which could cut threads from 6 to 96 t.p.i or, fitted with other gears, a wider range including metric threads.