The Sheraton was another Australian South Bend copy, made by G. L. Sheraton at 445 Heidelberg Road in Bayswater, Melbourne, from the early 1950s until 1981. Besides an exact copy of the South bend 9-inch the company also produced the "Conquest", a geared-head version of the South Bend 10-inch whilst other, smaller lathes of a different design, the Cub and Cadet for example, were also manufactured.  Sheraton had, apparently, a very close relationship with Demco and leased most of their (usually Czechoslovakian TOS) machine tools from them; in turn Demco (the import agents for TOS) acted as agents for  Sheraton lathes. Reports from Australia suggest that one of the reasons for the demise of  Sheraton was its move from what was described as a "...dingy, brick rabbit-warren old factory.." on Heidelberg Road to new premises some distance away. Many skilled workers, being unwilling to travel so far, took redundancy compensation and the company lost several key personnel. At some point the Sheraton concern was purchased by the UK-based 600 machine-tool group who also handled, through their Selson Company, the import of TOS lathes into the UK - as well as many other world-wide machinery interests.
Listed in sales literature as the Sheraton 41/2" (in Australia, as well as England, the capacity of a lathe is given as the centre height, not swing) the lathe was available in three models: "A" with screwcutting gearbox and power sliding and surfacing;  "B" with power sliding and surfacing but changewheels for screwcutting; "C" with changewheels and hand cross feed. Drive was by a heavy-duty "B" section V belt, although the original - and to some eyes rather quirky - 2-step V-belt-to-flat-pulley countershaft arrangement was retained to give a total of 16 speeds from around 25 to 1200 r.p.m. The spindle was hardened and ground finished, including the thread on the nose. Unlike the highly-developed South Bend spindle, which ended up with a wick-feed supply of lubricant from sumps beneath the bearings, the Sheraton relied upon simple top-mounted wick-equipped oilers.
Other departures from standard included the use of aluminium castings for the changewheel guard and the backgear covers, an improved lever-locked tailstock and a chromium-plate finish to the carriage handwheels. Some thought had obviously gone into the tailstock for, unlike the original that required the services of a loose, self-hiding spanner for the bed clamp, the Sheraton used a proper eccentric cross shaft and lever. As a further sophistication, the bed clamping plate was spring loaded so that as the tension of the locking lever relaxed it was automatically moved downwards instead of binding on its eye bolt.
Both simple cast-iron legs and a more modern-looking braced sheet-metal stand (both with and without shelves) were available as was a full range of accessories including taper turning, a swivelling vertical milling slide, collets, plain and micrometer carriage stops, a screwcutting cross-slide stop, metric translation gears, a bed-mounted 6-station capstan unit, production cut-off slide, T-slotted bring table, a neat toolpost grinder (similar to the "Little Giant" offered for the Boxford) and fixed and travelling steadies--both with neat, screw-adjustable bronze fingers.
If any reader has details of other Sheraton lathes the writer would be interested to hear from them..
More Sheraton pictures here: Sheraton Page 2   Sheraton Page 3