A heavily-built lathe, constructed to Schlesinger's limits of accuracy, the Rollo Supreme was available as two models - though distinguished only be their centre height for in all other respects the two lathes were identical. The bed was over 11" wide and the all-geared headstock of massive proportions. A detachable gap was provided as standard, but the option was offered of a straight-bed machine if so desired; with the gap removed a piece of metal 24" in diameter and 8" thick could be turned on the 8.5" model. The standard capacity between centres was 3 feet, but any length up to 6 feet could be ordered in foot intervals.
Eight speeds were provided, from 24 to 450 rpm, and although these were all rather slow by today's standards, they were perfectly suitable for the cutting tools in use at the time. The spindle was bored to pass a 2" diameter bar and rotated on taper roller bearings, the idler and layshafts of the geared headstock turned on ball races and all the gears were made from 50 ton gear-steel cut from the solid.
Early models were fitted with a metal-to-metal cone clutch with could be adjusted through a cover on the back of the headstock; later machines had a BOM multi-plate clutch, which was maintenance and adjustment free.
Unusual for the time, the lathe was supplied as standard able to generate both English and Metric threads without the substitution of different changewheels. The drive from the headstock arrived first at an auxiliary five-speed gearbox , the control handle for which was the first to the left-hand side of the machine and marked from A to E. This control could be moved to change the selected sliding and surfacing speeds whilst the spindle was turning. The drive then fed into an English/Metric selector box with a control lever on its detachable front face, before finally arriving at a conventional 12-speed Norton pattern quick-change screwcutting gearbox. English threads from 2 to 56 t.p.i could be cut (including the 11.5 t.p.i American pipe thread) and metric threads from 0.25 mm to 9.5 mm pitch. All the gears in the system were steel, not cast iron, and ran in oil baths.