Manufactured originally by L. E. Rhodes of Hartford, Connecticut with a patent date of 1914, the interesting and useful Rhodes "Convertible" was both a 7-inch stroke shaper and a 3.5-inch Vertical Slotter.
The machine appear to have been current through the 1920s and 1930s and, though well made, was of relatively light construction. The  main body was cast from close-grained, grey iron with the horizontal bearing surface for the ram, and vertical cross rail surface, both being hand scraped; the horizontal bearing surface for the ram also provided the location for the vertical Slotter Attachment. The driving gears and power take-off for the table cross feed were enclosed in the main column and accessed through a small cast-iron door.
The knee was not of box form but open across its lower surface - so depriving it on some rigidity - and carried two T slots in its top surface, a single V slot in the right-hand vertical face and a number of tapped holes in both surfaces to help in the bolting down of work. As standard the knee could not be rotated, but available as an optional-extra was a swivelling knee, able to be moved through 90 degrees in either direction and located in its central position by a hardened and ground dowel.
The power feed worked in both directions and was engaged by the usual lift-and-turn pawl.
The drive was by a 3-step, flat-belt pulley mounted on sleeve bearing that relieved the shaft of belt strain and helped to ensure that the gears were not taken out of the correct mesh when under heavy loads. A good quality, robustly-constructed, swivelling-base, all-steel vice was provided, with its jaws made from hardened and ground tool steel.
When the machine was used as a slotter, some means of moving the work around under the cutter was, of course, required and to accomplish this a compound table was mounted on the knee - with the in-out feed screw attached to a separate bracket carried on the front edge. The slotter ram was fitted with a through screw, by which means the tool could be accurately set, adjusted and also moved through an arc of 10 degrees.
The early L. E. Rhodes manufactured machines had a 3-slot table but later, when the company was taken over (around 1928) by BC Ames of Waltham, Massachusetts and renamed the Rhodes Manufacturing Company the number of slots was reduced to two.