Hi there, New member with a question.

[scott yeomans]

I just bought a Dominion lathe, I've spent hours on the lathe.com site but I can't find anything that looks like the lathe I have. It's obviously a dominion lathe, but it doesn't have the speed controlling handle, and the shaft lock control has been blanked off with a plate. There doesn't seem to be any information on dominion stuff pre-1950s, does anybody recognise this one? I would be interested to know what it is and roughly what date it was made.

 

[DeBangis]

Welcome to UKW.

 

[scott yeomans]

Cheers, you seem to be my kind of people, been looking for a chat room about workshop machinery for a while. I'm glad to be here

 

[Cabinetman]

Hi and welcome, Dominion were a good old British make, I had a large combination machine in my workshop 50? Years ago trying to make separates from it - definitely a bridge too far!! Never seen a lathe from them -sorry.
It’s handy for members to know approximately where you are Scott if you could add it to your nameplate?
You might have a neighbor with a machine the same!
Ian

 

[scott yeomans]

Hi, I'll see if I can work out how to do that. But I'm a turner operating out of Dunoon in Scotland. I too had a Dominion combination machine back in the day. It was splendidly dangerous. Fortunately you can't still get the tooling to turn the planer thicknesser into a spindle molder, otherwise I might not be talking to you today. I usually use a viceroy short bed lathe to do most of my turning, but I thought this dominion one looked pretty good as a spindle turner. My theory is that it is one that was built during the second world war, when materials were short. It seems like a stripped back version of the standard 50s lathe. But maybe they decided to just use ganged pulleys and a belt system to change the speed to save materials. Or maybe not. It's just a theory. But if anybody out there recognises it and has more information, it can be a problem trying to find out about old machinery. I have a ransoms pickles planer thicknesser that I have no idea about. There is nothing on the internet about it either.