Continued:
In the mid 1950s Portass had produced over twenty different models of lathe, together with a small selection of millers, shapers, drills, countershaft-drive systems, foot motors, vertical-milling slides and T-slotted cross slides. In reality, production of all but lathes appears to have been very limited - and even these were made in batches to order with, at any one time, only a small selection of the range available. As a typical example the Model "C" was a low-cost special sold only direct from the factory, the margins being insufficient to allow any dealer discount. The "C" was a very basic lathe, with a 3-inch centre height, listed in 1953 at £13 : 17s : 6d for the 10-inch between-centres model and £15 : 10s : 0d for the 17-inch and supplied without backgear or screwcutting and with the T-slotted saddle carrying just a single, swivelling tool slide. Even with its attractively low price few can have been sold and the model is rarely encountered second-hand. Another limited-production machine was a rather different backgeared and screwcutting lathe that broke with many Portass conventions; this type appears to be even rarer, only one surviving example being known - and its model designation remains a mystery.
Portass was also kept busy supplying machines for retailers to re-badge as their own and examples have been found marked: Altona, A.T.M., B.I.L., Bond's Maximus, "Eclipse" (for the Sheffield hand-tool makers James Neil & Sons) Excell, G.A. (George Adams), Gamages , Graves, James Grose Ltd. of London (the latter chiselling the Portass name off and substituting their own badge), Juniper, Randa, Temmah, Woolner and Zyto, All appear to have been based on established Portass models, nearly always the venerable "S Type", although in every case some small differences, usually down to cost-cutting, can be found.  The most famous Portass lathe was the popular and long-lived "Dreadnought"; the name was unfortunately (and confusingly) applied to a variety of models but is most commonly found on a heavily built 35/8" x 20" gap bed, backgeared screwcutting machine fitted with tumble reverse and available for both bench and stand fitting. The first of the Dreadnought models shown below is fitted to the maker's "underdrive stand", and follows the sensible Portass principles of using, wherever possible, very long flat drive belts. However, one dreads to think of the transmission losses as the motor struggled to first spin a plain-bearing cross shaft (through the upper part of the left-hand leg) then a massive cast-iron flywheel and, finally, the strongly-built, bronze-bushed headstock spindle. In reality the machine performed extremely well, and an example used by the writer for a number of months ran with turbine-like smoothness - the flywheel proving capable of storing prodigious amounts of energy.  The two other Dreadnoughts illustrated on this page are very rare examples with centre heights of 5 and 45/8-inches; it is known that only six examples of the version with a hinged "Perspex" cover on the front of the headstock and a screwcutting gearbox were made, and it must be assumed that the other model, with a more conventional appearance and screwcutting by changewheels, was also made in very limited numbers.
Most of the ordinary 35/8" x 20" Dreadnought models were supplied for both bench mounting and stand mounting first with flat belt drive - listed (for some unfathomable reason) by the makers as "Green List" machines - and finally with a neat V-belt countershaft unit that, in the last few years of production, was bolted to the back of the lathe bed. Portass also produced, over four decades, many other varieties of small lathe of which the best known, and most frequently encountered, is the Model S, a simple, 3" x 12.5" machine with a gap bed and (usually but not exclusively), backgear and screwcutting. Of late 1920s design the lathe was re-modelled and brought back into production - "in response to many earnest requests from home and overseas" - in 1951, when it was available with centre heights of 3 and 33/8  inches and between-centres capacities of 121/2 and 18 inches.
In the mid 1950s, as demand for the original, now rather old-fashioned looking Dreadnought waned (doubtless under competitive pressure from the success of the very much more up-to-date Myford ML7), Portass introduced the backgeared, screwcutting, 6-speed 35/8" x 17" gap bed D5 or "Dreadnought Five" (not to be confused with the quite different Mk. 5) almost a miniature version of the earlier machine with both headstock spindle and tailstock barrel of 1-inch diameter. The headstock was almost identical to that employed on the last design of "Model S" with a 9 t.p.i x 1.122" spindle thread and 3/8" bore but with tumble-reverse fitted as standard. The lathe was brought further up-to-date by the use of a long cross slide with 5 T-slots, V-belt drive and the complete guarding for the changewheels and backgear fitted as standard. A set of eleven changewheels was provided: 2 x 20t, 25t, 30t, 35t, 40t, 45t, 50t, 55t, 60t and 65 teeth. As is so often the case "new" did not mean "better" and the "PD5" (as it became known) was only a pale imitation of its heavier, more workman-like forebears. At around the time of the D5's introduction the firm suffered an almost mortal blow when a large number of patterns was stolen - so preventing them from supplying spares for the majority of older models. Stanley died in the early 1970s and the firm ceased trading with all the remaining stock of spares and patterns being destroyed.  Unfortunately the Portass family appear to no longer have any connection with Sheffield, and if any reader is able to supply additional information about the Portass Company, or the family,  the writer, a native of the city, would be interested to hear from them..
Tony Griffiths

The largest-ever Portass lathe was also called a Dreadnought: this is a very rare model, and was built exclusively on an underdrive stand and was the only Portass known to have been fitted with a screwcutting gearbox - though a version with changewheels (below) was also offered. These lathes were made in both 45/8" and 51/8" centre heights (only six of the latter being manufactured) and fitted with No. 3 Morse taper tailstock barrels. The Perspex window in the hinge-open cover on the front of the headstock was surely a unique feature, enabling the fascinated owner to watch in jaw-dropping amazement as the "works went round".

An equally rare machine, this virtually unknown Dreadnaught was listed by the makers as a 4-inch - but were actually slightly larger at 4 5/8". It was mounted on either a sheet-metal or cast-iron underdrive plinth (with a cast leg and chip tray) and fitted with screwcutting by changewheels. The motor was mounted inside the stand with a simple countershaft unit that gave a  final drive to the headstock by a flat belt running over 3-step pulleys. The backgearing was contained within the top part of the headstock casting (hence its unusual height above the spindle line) and was described in the advertising literature as being of the "top-geared" type. If the lathe was not fitted to the maker's stand the top and rear-mounted cover plates could be taken off to allow drive by a remote countershaft. The unusual backgearing was not the only eccentricity - the gap in the bed was over-wide and the front spindle bearing extended outwards to give a better chance of reaching up to the chuck jaws. With a faceplate fitted the problem would have been more serious - and only fresh air could have supported the front end of the carriage at the limit of its forward travel.
It is believed that a batch of these lathes, with their centre height increased to 51/8", was exported to Indonesia during 1963.