Long known for their professional-quality woodworking machines, the Dominion Machinery Company Ltd. were based in Hipperhole near Halifax. They produced a number of wood-turning lathe of which the most popular and long-lived were the 8.5-inch centre height Type A.L.Y. (in older "round-style" and modern "angular" versions) and the subject of this article, 6-inch F.J.A.  Competing in the same segment of the market as Harrison Union Graduate, the very heavily-built 6" x  30" or 42" (152 mm x 1016 mm or 1320 mm) ) F.J.A. offered a lot of turning capacity in a small space. One compelling advantage the lathe offered (especially for educational and training use) was variable-speed drive, a fitting that did not become available on the Graduate until the 1990s. With control by a single lift-and-fall lever on the front face of the stand this convenient and efficient drive also provided a much safer machine - there being no need to open covers and move belts from pulley to pulley. The system was mechanical, with expanding and contracting pulleys driven by either a 1 h.p. 3 phase motor or a 3/4 h.p. 1-phase motor, and gave a useful range from 400 to 2400 r.p.m. The drive unit, mounted on a single shaft and using side-by-side expanding and contracting pulleys, was fitted between the fixed motor in the base of the plinth and the headstock pulley. It was arranged to "float" vertically in its hanger and, as it rose and fell, so automatically compensated for the change in belt tension as the both pulleys moved. Also fitted was a useful spindle brake, operated by a lever on the face of headstock. While the slowest speed was ideal for turning large-diameter bowls, the highest was, perhaps, a little too slow for smaller work.
Made from cast iron, the bed was a particularly rigid assembly and bolted to a headstock-end plinth which, though it resembled cast-iron in appearance, was actually made from welded steel plate. The plinth held the motor, drive system and push-button, thermal overload-type starter while the tailstock end of the machine was supported on a lighter, though entirely adequate sheet-steel fabrication. The end face of the headstock had provision for a bolt-on bowl-turning attachment - the adjustment and locking of which was by a single lever operating through a quick-action cam.
Running in sealed-for-life 40 mm x 45 mm ball races, the No. 3 Morse taper, 3/4-inch (19 mm) bore spindle carried, as standard, a 14-inch faceplate on the outboard end and 6.5-inch on the inner. The maximum capacity for bowl turning was 20-inches (508 mm) in diameter by 6-inches (152 mm) thick - or 14-inches (356 mm) by 12-inches (304 mm)  thick.
Unusually for a wood lathe the tailstock spindle carried a No. 3 Morse taper - making it handy for very heavy drilling - with the whole unit locked to the bed by a cam-action lever.
Standard equipment comprised: full electrical equipment; inner and outer faceplates; cone, standard and screw centres - and the necessary spanners. Available at extra cost were: a rack-driven carriage unit with cross-feed slide; a toolholder and seven special cutting tools of various kinds; a bowl-turning attachment; tilting sanding table; deep-hole boring attachment; a tool tray between the stand legs; 1/2" (13 mm) and 3/4" (19 mm) cup centres; chuck backplates, 4-inch (100 mm)  and 6-inch (162 mm) 3-jaw self-centring chucks and, of course, a selection of woodturning tools. The standard lathe weighed approximately 7 cwt 2 qrs (380 kg) and the long bed version 9 cwt 2 qtrs (483 kilo)..