The Duplicating Lathe Will Open May 13, 2010.

Centered around a 19th century steam powered duplicating lathe, this outdoor shop features continuous demonstrations of lathed wood items such as rolling pins, biscuit cutters, noodle cutters and more. See baseball bats being made on the antique duplicating lathe, which can be personalized to guest's specifications with stamped letters and numbers. Watch our woodworkers in action as they turn the lathe and spin tall tales!

The Story of our Duplicating Lathe

In the 1870's, an employee of the Winchester Arms Company invented a machine called the duplicating lathe. For the first time, the company could use a machine to produce the odd shapes for gunstocks and furniture, and could produce them in a fourth of the time.They no longer had to whittle out gunstocks by hand. Every settler, trapper, and lawman needed a gun. The demand seemed endless.

The first duplicating lathe came to Silver Dollar City in 1890. John Wright brought it with him after he quit making guns for the Winchester Arms Company. He had gone through the Civil War and had seen the damage his guns had done. He could no longer make weapons for people to start another war. He decided to put the duplicating lathe to good use and started creating walking sticks, furniture legs, banister spindles, kitchen utensils, toys for children and baseball bats for the new national pastime. The townspeople were soon keeping the lathe smoking with requests for their homes and toys for their children. John Wright had new meaning and purpose to his life. Just the joy of a little boy's face when he sees his very own baseball bat was reason enough to keep turning that lathe. Today John tells stories of the times past as he watches his machine spin out pieces of joy.

John Williams, Duplicating Lathe