Month: January 2014

For watchmakers and hobbyist who do maintenance or repair on Hamilton movements, you probably have found a need for a staking set. If you’re like me, you only have training for balance wheel staking. I’ve bought a number of books, downloaded PDFs, dug material out of watchmakers manuals. I have spent too much money and had little return.

I found a PDF of the original K&D manual in the public domain. It’s similar to two different ones I bought. I uploaded it to Zamar and used their conversion tool. I converted it to a HTML file and rebuilt it in MS Word. It’s now back in a PDF format. If you would like to download it you can do so here.

K&D Staking Set 18R Deluxe – The Last K&D Product C1997

If you want to save yourself the hassle looking for other materials, I bought a printed book that helped me understand staking tools.

You don’t need a library of staking tools – just one book.

RECOMMENDED

The Watchmakers Staking Tool by Pierce. Mike the Watch Guy re-published it and sells it on his eBay store as well as on Lulu.com. Just Google: Mike the Watch Guy and you’ll find it.

Staking Tools and How to Use Them

This download is not for the book recommended above.  I’ve provided  the original K&D manual – Copyright 1910 and now in the public domain. (Still Relevant).

I added charts as appendixes to help identity the function of K&D and C&E Marshall Moseley punches and stumps.

Good luck.

People know Kendrick and Davis or K&D for their staking sets. From 1903 – 1997, the company owned the staking tool market.

People also knew K&D for their other tools and accessories. Recently, I tried to chase down one of their model train engine catalogs, for example. I would like to see that.

During K&D’s prime years, you could consider them comparable in design and quality to today’s Bergeon tools.

I buy and use vintage K&D tools. You can guess that my staking set belongs to the K&D family.

Here are some other tools I have found useful for staffing balance wheels.

The balance block can be used like a staking frame die-plate on which to hold the balance. People use the curved collet fork to remove the balance spring.

You can consider the adjustable balance table removers stumps as essential.

Once you restaff the balance wheel and use your punches and stumps to remount the everything, the collet wrench helps you line up the components of the escape mechanism and put the watch “in beat.”

They’re still useful today.

(click on any image to see it individual in a larger format).