Kendrick & Davis (K&D) staking sets remain part of the Hamilton Watch Company consciousness, especially for those of us who have serviced watches over the years. Knowing how to staff a balance wheel remains one of the essential skills of watch repair people. I don’t know how to accomplish that task with out a staking set.
Kendrick & Davis supplied the US Military with staking sets for watchmakers during World War II. Military watchmakers used K&D tools to repair Hamilton watches during those years. K&D provided their model 18B staking set shown in the manual as ordnance KN-18-B.
The US Military contracted with Hamilton Watch Company to manufacture the first wristwatches and pocket watches for US troops and the countries’ allies. Hamilton used its 987-A movement and a Star Watch Case to create the standard issue wristwatch for the military. Except for the casing materials, Hamilton use an Endicott model from the 1938-39 collection to supply the Allies with watches.
I have owned several K&D staking sets and found them superior to other companies’ offerings. When attending horology school full-time at the Texas Institute for Jewelry and Horology, I noticed that that the boxes contained stakes from different manufacturers. I didn’t have an eye for picking out the correct stakes when I needed to staff a balance.
I spend several months tracking down different staking sets and using documentation from those sets, I compiled a cross-over charts. You can see it below. You can download it by clicking on the link below.
Download the crossover staking set list below.
https://www.tadelstein.com/Cross-over-punches.pdf
I also discovered a variety of K&D stakes and stumps in kits I bought whose numbers did not match any of those in the 18B inverto kit. I had to look far and wide to match their part numbers. I found them listed the K&D’s 1910 catalog.
I also found that the 1910catalog contained the 50 page book on how to perform various tasks with staking sets. I spend over $100 acquiring the catalog. K&D included the how to book with their standard literature from 1910 to the 1970. Little material changed during those years and frankly, watches had not changed much during those years.
Fortunately, the 1910 catalog became part of the public domain in the 1930’s. However, just to land on the safest side of copyright law, I did not put it in an electronic format until long after 100 years passed.
I want to pass it along to watchmakers and hobbyists. I have no interest in people who want to resell it, but then we cannot stop them from taking advantage of others by republishing the book or simply selling it as a download.
Here’s the link to download the book and following that link, you can also download the TM 9-1575 manual – also part of the public domain.
Enjoy!
https://tadelstein.com/Staking Tools and How to Use Them 1910 – 163p BW – S.pdf
https://tadelstein.com/TM9-1575 WWII Repair manual.pdf
