Thread: Dalton Lathes
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[email protected] chris.kucia@gmail.com is offline
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Default Dalton Lathes

On Friday, December 26, 2003 at 11:31:31 AM UTC-5, Dennis Turk wrote:
To all Dalton owners and people interested in Dalton equipment. My
name is Dennis Turk and I own seven Dalton lathes, one lot 3 and six
lot 4 machines. The range of age is before 1914 and to after 1925. I
do not use the lathes as they are for restoration and display.

There is a group of Dalton owners that share pictures information and
in some cases replacement parts. There is I believe 13 people in this
group. We are known as just the Dalton Gang.:-) Two of the people
live in England, as it seems Daltons ended up over there also.

There are no multi function machines in the group. The group is
comprised of one lot 2 lathe two lot 3 lathes sixteen lot 4 lathes and
one lot 6. The lot number is just in front of your serial number and
denotes the model. B-4 or B-6.

Not all lathes especially the early ones have model tags on them only
a lot #. We keep a record of all Lot and Serial numbers and this way
we can gestimate the approximate age or year of build for the lathes.

In this group there is also one very original peddle or foot powered
lathe that has the hand lever on the tailstock. Really interesting
machine. Devil to run though.

I would be interested in communicating with anyone that owns a Dalton
lathe for the purpose of tracking serial numbers and helping others
with problems with their lathes. There are a very small number of
replacement parts available. These are used but serviceable.

In some of the postings there was a question as to the age of Dalton
tool works. We know that Herbert Dalton started the company some time
before 1912 and it failed in the stock market crash of 1929. In 1930
Elecrolux purchased the property and built vacuum cleaners there

Thanks and I hope to hear form all Dalton owners.


I just acquired a Dalton from my father. I believe he acquired it from a local school.

It's a short lot 5, I think the s/n is 275 but I will confirm.

Has a roughly made table and a couple of pails of parts.

Some light rust and it's obviously not been used in awhile. Unfortunately the gear cover and part of the end support were broken and then crudely welded. I'll have to see what I can do to make them more presentable.

I have a small Chinese lathe in running condition, so I plan on taking the Dalton apart and basically rebuilding it. Dalton has a slightly larger swing and longer ways and I suspect it will be a better machine once I get it running again.

Curious if there's any information on what colors these originally came in. Mine's covered in sloppy grey paint but I suspect it's been repainted numerous times.

I'm a little sore from moving this thing by myself and I have a stack of other projects pending, but I hope to make the Dalton a winter project.