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About Us

DUNHAM TOOL HISTORY

Dunham Tool was founded in 1958/1959 by Russell and Beverly Dunham in New Fairfield, Connecticut. Russell Dunham developed and received a patent for the Dunham Expanding Collet in 1959, and initially manufactured it in his home shop.

After several years, Russell and Beverly built Dunham Tool's first manufacturing facility, also in New Fairfield, Connecticut. The Dunham Expanding Collet was successful in the industrial marketplace, and over many years this success led to the development and manufacture of Dunham Expanding Mandrels, Collet Chucks and Actuators, Spindle Headstocks, Vacuum Chucks, Bar Stock Pullers, Automatic and CNC Lathes (with automatic Loading and Unloading Systems), Adjustable Tool Holders, and many other work holding and tool holding devices. Dunham Tool was awarded many additional patents over the years.

Dunham Tool has earned and maintained its reputation in industry worldwide for innovative, high accuracy and high quality products, excellent customer support and service. Most Dunham products have been developed by listening and responding to our customers' and industries' manufacturing requirements. The Dunham CNC 3000 Lathe was introduced at the Chicago IMTS Show in 1980, and was one of the first commercially available small CNC Lathes in the marketplace.

In 2004/2005, Dunham Tool decided to refocus its engineering and manufacturing resources on the work and tool holding products (Collets, Collet Chucking Systems, Spindle Headstocks, etc.) and it discontinued manufacturing all Dunham Lathes.

In January 2015 Dunham Tool was acquired by Lisle Corporation of Clarinda, Iowa. Lisle Corporation has been owned and operated by the Lisle family since 1903. Lisle is known as the leading manufacturer of Automotive Specialty Tools, Lubrication Products and Mechanics Creepers. Lisle is committed to the continued and enhanced development and manufacturing of Dunham products and the customer support that Dunham's worldwide customers expect. The company is now the Dunham Tool Company, Division of Lisle Corporation.

OUR PRODUCTS:
Dunham Tool has been designing and manufacturing innovative products for over 40 years. Our product list includes:

  • Expanding Collets

  • 5C Collets

  • R8 Collets

  • Expanding Mandrels

  • Dead Stop Step Chucks

  • Air Collet Closers 

  • Precision Lathes

  • High Speed Spindles

  • 50M Spindle Headstocks

  • Air Collet Chucks

  • CNC Collet Chucks

  • CNC Lathe Bar Pullers

 

By consistently listening to our customers, Dunham Tool has continuously incorporated their ideas with our own innovations, our high quality engineering and our manufacturing excellence. This dedication to continuous improvement in product design and manufacturing has earned Dunham Tool's products a worldwide reputation for product flexibility, durability, accuracy, and value. Dunham products consistently provide profitable performance for our customers, and Dunham Tool's customer support services are unmatched in industry.

OUR CUSTOMERS:
Dunham Tool sells its products worldwide through select Industrial Distributors, Machine Tool Distributors and directly to end users. The Dunham Tool Company also works very closely with many Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM's) that use Dunham products as critical components in their standard and special machines.

We work very closely with many international and multinational corporations to assure that the correct Dunham products and product support are properly delivered to their multiple facilities. Additionally, we work very closely with these corporations' special machine building groups to supply Dunham products as critical components in many special machines they design for their special process requirements.

For product assistance, call us at 712-542-1908 or e-mail us at preferred@dunhamtool.com so that we can find a solution to your machine tool need.

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