Universal joint

Due to Pittler lathes having an unusual design with the leadscrew being hidden inside the trapezoidal bed, it made it impossible for power cross feed to work in the normal way via a front placed leadscrew.  The ingenious answer was a universal joint on the C3 and the large industrial D and E lathes which could power several different accessories. The most commonly seen are the ball turning and cross feed attachments. These were actually included with the lathe in the early years but seemingly became an optional accessory after the factory moved to Wahren in 1899.  Lathes supplied to the UK dealership of George Adams- from around 1902 when he became proprietor of The Pittler Company-  did not include many of the original accessories once supplied as standard. Pittler catalogues show several more accessories that also use this mechanism. Other attachments using the universal joint include a T slotted table with power cross feed , a backing off attachment, a  cam cutting device, an automatic indexing and gear cutting device etc.  A similar  attachment for ball turning was available for the B2 where the universal joint ran off the end of the screw cutting spindle,  a special saddle casting was also required for this attachment.