Allen, It looks like Dan has a pretty good idea here. I have seen spinning wheels and small looms in living rooms. In both cases they were functional. What if you could make a functional Rifling Machine with the same or smaller footprint? You can, and Mike and I saw one, made by Smith and Wesson in the late 1850s or early 1860s when we visited Springfield Armory in Springfield, Mass. It was for producing rifling in pistol barrels, of course, and the machine was very similar to ours, only smaller. It was about 36" long, 7" deep, and 14" tall (not counting the cast iron stand). The shallow depth was possible, because they built their machine like ours, only it's operating configuration, mounted upon it's stand, was flipped 90 degrees from ours. Imagine our machine flipped, so the top edge, closest to the machinist, is rotated toward you and down toward your belt. The back side comes up and toward your chest. The rack is now vertical, but the machine works normally, just like it does in the horizontal attitude. This size rifling machine could cut grooves in any small cannon tube which did not exceed 12" in length, or you could cut a few premium quality, gain twist, pistol barrels like some custom makers are doing today. Small size. Big results!
Mike and Tracy