Hi all
We need to clarify some of your Dalton history. I am afraid that
Tony Griffith has some errors in his interpretation of Dalton
history.
Ron Jim Bonner came up with some court documents a couple of years
ago that dispute Tony's interpretation of old Hubert. These
documents were dated 1933 and in them it is stated that the Dalton
lathe company was located in NY from 1914 to 1925 when they went
into receivership. The Dalton Mfg. Comp. had lost money every year
from 1914 to 1925 and the government closed them down. Hubert paid
off all the creditors out of his own pocket to the tune of
$365.000. Some time in 1925 all production of lathes was moved to
the South Beach plant. I really think that Hubert was using the
losses of the Dalton Mfg comp. to offset profits in his other
companies and the move to South Beach was in his plans. He
according to these court records was a very wealthy man and a
prolific inventor. This is were he made most of his money. The
five companies he owned were assigned different inventions to
produce. If you check out Andy's web site and look at some of the
inventions he held patents on you will see what I mean. Hubert was
in court to try and get some back taxes reduced over the closure of
the Dalton Mfg Comp. Owe by the way he lost his court battle and
had to pay up.
Dalton Mfg. Comp. started building lathes we think in about 1910
first with the OT and then on to the Lot 2 and Lot 3 lathes. These
lathes are different than all that followed in many ways. I have
two lot 3 lathes and parts to a Lot 2 and these parts are like John
Allen's Lot 2 down in Kentucky. These are really smaller lathes
though they do still swing 7 inches and have a 30 inch bed. The
saddle cross slide and compound are much different and smaller.
The end door is about two thirds the size of a Lot 4 lathe. These
early lathes show a lot of changes as we don't have two that are
alike. A seam there was a lot of development work going on in the
early years. The spindle and bearings are the same as is the back
gear but the head stock casting is much lighter and also the cone
pulley is smaller as is the counter shaft mating pulley. The tail
stock seems to be the only thing that is the same. The bed and the
way things mount to it are unique to the early lathes and have much
smaller vee ways and the lead screw mounts are totally different.
The forward reveres shifter is also different and we have three
different versions of this design. The first Lot 4 came out in 1914
we think as that is the first patent dates we have. I actually have
a Lot 2 spindle that I got from HDD or Jeff Burris about five years
ago. He had a bunch of used Dalton parts that he sold and I got all
of them. John Allan got the tail stock as he needed one. In this
batch of parts was a spindle that though well used it was unique in
that it has a 3C collet seat machined in the end of the spindle and
the key for the collet is secured under a screw in the front bearing
journal. It is the only one we have seen like it. Owe one other
thing secured to the spindle with some wire was a set of brand new
spindle bearings."-)))))
You must remember that Hubert Dalton owned five different companies
at this time though we only know the names and locations for the
two.
Lot OT and Lot 2 3 4 5 6 and Lot 8 as well as the TL lathe and also
the combination lathe were all built at the New York plant up till
1925. It must be noted that we call the 9 ? inch lathe with a four
foot bed the Lot 8 as we have not found an example of one yet.
There may be one in England but the fellow has not sent pictures of
it yet. We call this lathe the Lot 8 because we just don't know
what it was called. This lathe shared the same bed and most all
other parts with the Lot 6 lathe only had a taller tail stock and
head stock as well as the longer bed. For you that have not had a
chance to work with a Lot 6 lathe they are a far cry from all the
smaller lathes. These really are in the same class as a SB of the
time and in some ways had better features. Some of witch are larger
hardened and ground spindles threading feeding stops and really more
heavily built beds. They weight much more than a 9 inch SB Logan
and Sheldon lathes that came later.
The South Beach plant was built sometime in the early twenties and
housed the Dalton tool company. Here is were all the tooling and
accessories for the lathes and other products were built. This was a
new plant and had casting facilities so Dalton could build every
part of the lathes and there accessories. Up till the South Beach
plant Dalton sub contracted all the gears and tags to a company in
CT. Flather lathe used the same components on there 7 inch lathe
only the address on the threading tag was different. I have a
Flather 7 inch and all the change gears are exactly the same as
Daltons. Even have all the same casting markings. . Dalton started
building all there own change gears with the introduction of the
full disc gear in the early to mid twenties. We don't know just
when the Lot 5 came out but we think it was the early twenties and
by 1925 had seen some changes. My Lot 5 was built in the South
Beach plant according to the threading tag and has some of the later
features. We have a few more lathes that were built there and they
are all the very late model ones. Greg Fosmark's being the newest
Dalton we have a Lot 6 with serial number 7014. The other Lot 6
lathes we have are all under 400. Greg's lathe sports a number of
very nice improvements.
There are a number of features on the lathes that indicate to me
about when they were built. Tail stocks changed in about 1923 or 24
on the Lot 4 and Lot 5 lathes. We see the same design detail on the
Later Lot 6 lathes.
If you did not know Dalton Tool company failed in the stock market
crash of 1929. Some of this history I have gleaned from the Electro
Lux vacuum cleaner company history. This was a Swedish company that
purchased the South Beach plant in 1931. It was intact with all the
Dalton manufacturing equipment in place. They used much of this
equipment in the startup of building vacuum cleaners here in the US.
Dennis Turk
