DALTON OF THE WEEK - SMALL THIN LINE SEAL

For the fifth installment of the "Dalton of the Week", we'll cover the small Thin Line SEAL at the request of Donk and JP30. I've been incorrectly calling this model the Medium Slim SEAL for the last couple of years based on what a dealer had told me. The model that we're covering this week is the smaller version, with an overall length between 6 - 1/2 and 6 - 3/4 inches. There were at least two larger sizes of the Thin Line SEAL; one with an overall length of about eight inches, and another with an overall length of just under nine inches. We'll cover the larger models in future installments. The small version also had three diagonal grooves in the handle, where the larger versions had four and five diagonal grooves.

Dimensions:

Overall length: 6 - 3/4" for the clip point blade, 6 - 1/2" for tanto blade
Blade length: 2 - 3/4" for the clip point, 2 - 1/2" for the tanto

The small Thin Line SEALs were made around 1997. There were two major blade shape variants, a clip point and a tanto. There were a number of other blade variations. The clip points came in both double ground and chisel ground versions. The tantos, like almost all other tanto Daltons, were chisel ground. There were also two variations in blade thickness, 1/8" and 3/16". Most of these that I've seen had bead blast blades, but I do have one specimen with a hi-polished blade.

I have never seen any Thin Line SEALs with the Dalton logo or the "D" tang stamp. All of them have had "USA" engraved on the back of the button side handle slab. None of these had serial numbers as far as I know.

There were several different handle material variations. Besides the normal T6061 aluminum handles, some were made with green G10 handles, G10 handles that were dyed or colored black, Titanium handles, and Rainbow Titanium handles. There was also a left handed variation. All of the left handed ones that I've seen had the 3/16" thick blade. Only two of the seven pieces that I have were fitted with pocket clips and I've only seen a few that were serrated. Also, the translucent green of the G10 (electrical grade) fiberglass handles is the natural color of that material.

This is the standard clip point version with aluminum handles:



This is the standard clip point version with green G10 handles. Note the finger grooves on the blade spine.



This is a tanto version with the black G10 handles:



This is a clip point with polished Rainbow Ti handles and a polished blade:



Here is the left handed model. Note the round rubber inserts in the handles vice the diagonal grooves:



Let me know if I've missed anything, and as always, many thanks to the Daltons for providing the details.