and the Dalton Manufacturing Corp.
- Update -
This information is courtesy of Gay Taylor, a kind historian of Hubert Dalton who generously sent us some of her research.
The companies owned by Hubert Dalton were:
Dalton Motor Car Company (~1911)
Dalton Manufacturing Corporation of New York (~1913)
Dalton-Thibault Corporation of New York (~1928)
Armstrong Products Corporation (late 1920's)
Willowbrook Corporation (~1932) - This was the nursery business - Dalton loved hybridizing orchids.
Dalton Tool & Machine Corporation
Thanks, Ms. Taylor!
Draft Copy of the 104 page manuscript detailing the life of Hubert K. Dalton, written by Gay Frances Taylor.
Warning! - This is a large Adobe .pdf file of over 4 mb. Dialup connection users beware. (It's worth the effort to download though!)
All those interested in Hubert Dalton owe Ms. Taylor a HUGE thank you!
Other links to Dalton on the web:
Tony's Griffith's lathes.co.uk web site
Dalton vs Bowers court case, US Supreme Court, 1932
Stay Tuned! More to come soon.
“I am afraid that Tony Griffith has some errors in his interpretation of Dalton history. Jim Bonner came up with some court documents a couple of years ago that dispute Tony's interpretation of old Hubert’s companies. These documents were dated 1933. 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 Manufacturing Company 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 $365,000.00.
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. Co. to offset profits in his other companies, and the move to South Beach was in his plans. According to these court records, Hubert 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 this 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. Oh, bye-the-way, he lost his court battle and had to pay up.
Dalton Mfg. Co. started building lathes (we think) in about 1910. First the “OT”, then on to the “Lot 2”, and “Lot 3” lathes. These lathes are different from all that followed, in many ways. I have two “Lot 3” lathes, and parts to a “Lot 2”. 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 the one on a “Lot 4” lathe.
These early lathes show a lot of changes, as we don't know of any two that are alike. It seems that 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 on the early lathes, but the head stock casting is much lighter and the cone pulley is smaller, as is the countershaft mating pulley. The tailstock seems to be the only thing that is the same across all production lots. The bed, and the way things mounted to it, are unique to the early lathes. They have much smaller vee ways, and the lead screw mounts are totally different. The forward/reverse shifter is also different - We have three different versions of this design.
We think the first Lot 4 came out in 1914, as that would coincide with the first of Hubert’s patent dates. 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 tailstock 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. Oh - 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 these two.
Lot “OT”, Lots 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, Lot 8, the “TL” lathe, and also the “combination lathe” were all built at the New York plant up until 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 it had a taller tail stock, taller head stock, and a longer bed.
For those of 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 South Bend of the time, and in some respects, had better features. Some of which are: Larger hardened and ground spindles, threading feeding stops, and much more heavily built beds. They weigh much more than the 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. It is here that 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 their accessories in-house. Up until the South Beach plant, Dalton sub-contracted all of the gears and ID tags to a company in Connecticut. Flather lathe used the same components on their 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. They even have all the same casting markings. Dalton started building all their 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. By 1925 it 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 know of a few more lathes that were built there and they are all very late model ones. Greg Fosmark's being the newest know Dalton, being a “Lot 6”, with serial number 7014. The other Lot 6 lathes we have seen all have serial numbers 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.
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 that is published on their web site. 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 5/7/2006
