The first Wade Precision Bench Lathe to be fitted with a pre-loaded, precision ball-bearing headstock spindle. This lathe was then used for many years in the manufacturing plant of the well-known bearing maker who had who had co-operated with the headstock design. According to recent correspondence with Hardinge, it appears some Wade lathes take not a 5C collet but a 5WA collet - which is just a little larger than a 4C.

No. 3 Lathe headstock fitted with traditional hardened-steel, double-angle cone plain bearings - with angles of four and forty degrees. Machines with this type of smooth-running bearing, developed originally for use in watchmaker's lathes, are known to have survived over fifty years of regular use.

The hardened spindle and hardened-steel double-cone bearings.
After hardening the shoulder, collar and threads on the spindle nose were reground to produce as perfect a concentric location as possible for the fittings that would be screwed to it.

Late-model Wade Precision Bench Lathes had a much more substantial headstock casting with the spindle running in ball (and later roller bearings) - the first maker of traditional Precision Bench lathes to offer the option of a change from the long-established hardened-steel pattern; the more rigid headstock casting was also adopted for use on the plain-bearing models.
Above: the No. 5 and No. 7 lathes with a section through the headstock assembly showing the bearing immediately behind the spindle thread to be a double-row roller and, just back from that (and also contained within the front housing), a precision ball thrust bearing. The rear of the spindle was supported in a deep-groove ball bearing - to ensure that the spindle was held as rigidly as possible all the bearings were set under a slight preload, .

With a base hand-scraped to exact alignment with the headstock, the tailstock carried a hardened and ground spindle fitted with a zeroing micrometer dial, finely-engraved ruler markings and the usual (and inadequate) No. 1 Morse-taper centre. The feed screw was Acme form, ran in a bronze nut and acted as a "self-eject" when it was drawn back far enough to hit the end of the centre. The barrel was made long enough so that, even when extended to the maximum of its 3-inch travel, it was still fully supported within the main casting. The locking clamp was of the internal compression-barrel type, designed to minimise any spindle deflection as it was tightened.

Beautifully made with hardened and ground Acme-form feed screws running in hardened-steel bearings (the long top slide with a bearing at each end) the compound slide rest was equipped with adjustable, hardened and ground steel thrust shoulders and long, bronze nuts. The micrometer dials could be zeroed - and read to 0.001" if your eyesight was good enough - for, like those fitted to so many lathes of their era, they were far too small.

Able to be converted to lever operation in a few minutes, the standard screw-feed tailstock was fitted with a screw-adjustable length stop to assist in repetition production work.

The "half-open" tailstock was a traditional accessory for Precision Bench Lathes and was widely used in factories and workshops for the type of semi-mass production process which required only light machining operations.
The top of the casting was open to facilitate rapid changes of spindle, of which a set would be kept by the machine, each equipped with a different tool; the spindles could be pushed by hand or assisted by a lever.

Rear view of the Wade "Chase Screwcutting" Attachment as fitted to a late model Wade.
Like all other genuine "Precision Bench Lathes", the Wade could employ either the "Chase" and "Top Slide with Changewheels" methods of thread generation.  The former system was developed by Joseph Nason of New York who obtained US Patent No. 10,383 on January 3, 1854 for an "arrangement for cutting screws in lathes." On wade lathes fitted with the "Chase" method a T slot, which ran down the back face of the bed, held adjustable supports which carried both the Master Thread - tucked up underneath the headstock - and the long "transmission rod" on which the cutting-tool slide pivoted and slid. The Master Thread was also known as a 'hob' or 'leader' and available ex-stock in 5,  5.5,  6,  6.5,  7,  8,  9 and 10 TPI versions - with others made to special order.
A "half-nut", held in the end of an arm connected to the "transmission rod", pressed on the thread and conveyed its pitch, via an adjustable toolholder, to the workpiece. The interconnection of the cutter holder and the half nut allowed the nut to be lifted out of engagement and the cutting tool returned by hand to the start without stopping or reversing the lathe. A little additional depth of cut could then be applied by the tool slide or "stop screw", the half-nut rested back on the Master Thread - and the cut restarted. The tool slide fitted to the Wade lathe, unlike the simple clamp on the rival Waltham lathe, was especially well designed and carried the tool on a compound slide rest which allowed it to be adjusted both laterally and vertically.
Whilst this system produced absolutely accurate threads, and was especially suited to delicate operations on thin-wall tubes used to construct such items as microscopes, the length of thread that could be cut, and the number of threads per inch or mm, depended upon the availability of the appropriate thread master - although in the case of the Wade additional gearing was provided to extend the threading range of each Master by a multiple of 1 to 10. For instance, a 10-pitch master would cut 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 80 and 100 TPI. Each hardened Master Thread was provided with an appropriate flute at one end so that it could be used to "hob out" its own half-nut.
To use the attachment the lathe was run in reverse for right-hand threads - with the toolholder moving from left to right. For left-hand threads the master thread and its nut were reversed, and the toolholder moved from right to left.
Early Wade lathes with chase screwcutting had to use a special bed and headstock (illustrated below). The bed carried a large T slot down both front and back surfaces and the headstock casting was extended rearwards to provide two mounting arms to carry the master thread. A very simple form of this screwcutting mechanism can be seen on the Goodell-Pratt Pages.

A very early Wade lathe, still with the American Watch Tool Co. logo fitted with a "Top Slide with Changewheels" screwcutting attachment.
This attachment, unlike the "Chase" screwcutting type, could also deal with internal threads. The set of changewheels normally supplied would cut thirty common threads between 30 and 100 TPI; to extend the threading range other changewheels were available to order. Like the rival Waltham lathe, no universal joints were used in the drive - the changewheels of which, when in use, were normally covered by a gear guard.

Front view of a very early Wade Precision Bench Lathe (still with its American Watch Tool Co. badge) fitted with Chase screwcutting. The first versions of the lathe with this attachment required a special bed with T-slots front and rear.

Described by Wade as their "Unit Motor Drive" the construction of the underdrive stands was unusual in that the main framework was fabricated from stampings; the top was a heavy lamination of wood, with the lathe sitting in a metal chip and coolant collection tray. The  countershaft unit was designed to provide 6 forward and reverse speeds in geometric progression from 200 to 2000 rpm. The pulley system included clutches, built into the shafts, which were operated by a levers protruding more or less horizontally from the centre of the assembly. One clutch switched the drive between high and low ratios in a ratio of 4:1 whilst the other stopped and started the drive.
A Simplified Motor Drive was also available which, while identical in layout to the above, lacked the clutches and had a narrower speed range.

The countershaft assembly in this drawing, while similar to that in the photograph, has an auxiliary power take-off on the right-hand side that rose to drive an  "overhead" used to power grinding, milling and drilling attachments held in the position normally occupied by the lathe's toolpost.

A variation in the drive available for the No. 7 lathe was the use of twin V belts for increased torque transmission. No method of slackening the belts seems to have been provided, but the makers claimed that "It has been found that these (V belts) can be shifted over the step cone pulley practically as easily as the flat belt." As the President said, it all depends what you mean by practically …..

The Wade Overhead Countershaft is a good example of how complex and expensive lathe drive systems used to be before the development of compact, built-on drive units. The drive system started with an under-slung motor and an attendant pulley system which drove up to a large "fast-and-loose" pulley system carried on flamboyant cast-iron columns above the lathe - a similar arrangement can be seen here driving an 8A Toolmaker's lathe. Foot-operated pedals controlled the sliding of the belt from the "loose" idle pulley to the "fast" drive pulley - whilst a second drive, from the right-hand side of the underneath countershaft, gave a higher range of speeds. A third drive, again "fast-and-loose" pulley controlled, but from a twisted belt, produced reverse.
The whole mass of cast iron, bearings, hanger brackets, belts, pedals, wires, belt-shifters, nuts, bolts, screws and washers provided just six forward speeds in geometric progression from 200 to 1750 rpm - and three in reverse.

Wade Precision bench Lathe fitted to an "Underdrive" stand with an extension drive to an overhead Auxiliary Countershaft designed to power Grinders and High-speed Spindles held on the compound slide rest.
Ball bearings were used throughout the assembly.

Right: overhead drive countershaft to run toolpost-mounted high-speed grinding and milling spindles.

Early Wade Precision Bench Lathe set up for production work.
The Turret Attachment had six holes of 5.8" diameter, indexed automatically and had a working travel of 3" plus an indexing travel of 1.25" - giving a total movement of 4.25".
The Double Cross Slide had a movement of 2" and used either standard tool holders or special ones made in a circular form. The Swivel Slide (illustrated below) could be used in place of the front block, and accepted the standard tool post.

The Three-bearing Headstock was designed for production work. This was a sturdily-built unit with a full-length mounting on the bed, not a mere extension to the length of the casting.
The device was intended to overcome the inherent tendency of collets to draw work backwards when they were tightened, making it difficult to obtain exactly depth setting on repetition work. In this design the collet remained "stationary" whilst, ingeniously (and in a similar manner to that used on German Lorch lathes) the headstock spindle moved forwards and backwards to tighten and release it.
In this case the mechanism is shown with a "wire-feed" arrangement whereby the stock to be turned was drawn into the spindle by the same movement of the lever that opened and closed the collet.  An interesting comparison can be made with the Ames unit illustrated here.

An adaptation of the "half-open" tailstock, a traditional accessory for Precision Bench Lathes and often employed in factories where they were used for semi-mass production processes which required only very light machining operations.
The casting was "open" to facilitate rapid changes of spindle, of which a set would be kept by the machine, each equipped with a different tool. The spindles could be pushed by hand, or with a lever.
The set up illustrated shows a boring operation on clock wheels (where the central hole is being bored true to the circumference after the gears are cut) using, in this case, a special jewelling rest and balloon head.

The Wade Lever-operated Swivel Slide was manufactured for many years and could be fitted to a variety of single, double and compound slide rests.

Short-bed production model (21-inches long) with lever-operated  slides and tailstock-mounted hand-indexed capstan unit.