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Howdy šŸ¤  From Southwest Virginia!


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Ā  Just wanted to say hello and introduce myself. Iā€™ve been a way from all web forums for a long time so it may take me awhile to get back in the swing of things.Ā 
Ā Ā Names Rick, Iā€™m from Lebanon ,VA deep in the mountains of SWVA. Our little slice of heaven has been home for me since 2004. Iā€™m was medically retired as a Master Auto/Diesel Mechanic after 29.5 years.Ā 
Ā Ā  Iā€™m an Army artillery veteran and have spent my lifetime working with my hands and fixing things.Ā 
Ā  Early in 2024 I took an interest in watchmaking and learning to repair & restore pocket watches. I went crazy šŸ¤Ŗ buying up all sorts of tools, dozens of pocket watches and more than a few wristwatches from the war eras. Ā Somewhere in that process I decided I needed buy a staking set, thatā€™s where my story took a left turn at Albuquerque šŸ¤£.Ā 
Ā Ā I bought one small K&D round based set with the glass dome. Ā It was in horrible shape and missing a whole bunch of stakes and stumps. This led to me to buying a ā€œfewā€ more which allowed me to completely fill the original set and even another small K&D starter set. After showing the finished product to some guys in the industry they mentioned I should start restoring them.
Ā Ā Ā Thatā€™s where Iā€™m at now. Things have completely taken off and I never expected this level of success. It was just a hobby for an old man to stay busy and now itā€™s taken on a life of its own in some respects.Ā 
Ā Ā I joined this site back in July while searching for answers about K&D history and catalogs and immediately found discussions about the Weebly site and that was a game changer for me. Ā Without that site I would not have had the successes I have had.Ā 
Ā  Eventually Iā€™ll get back to watchmaking and learning all I can about that, but for now Iā€™m having lots of fun and keeping my hands and mind working, trying to keep myself busy and work within my physical and medical restraints. Iā€™m always learning new things and look forward to sharing what I learn here and helping where I can.Ā 
Ā Ā Thanks for having me !Ā 

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29 minutes ago, Pigskinfanboy said:

Ā  Just wanted to say hello and introduce myself. Iā€™ve been a way from all web forums for a long time so it may take me awhile to get back in the swing of things.Ā 
Ā Ā Names Rick, Iā€™m from Lebanon ,VA deep in the mountains of SWVA. Our little slice of heaven has been home for me since 2004. Iā€™m was medically retired as a Master Auto/Diesel Mechanic after 29.5 years.Ā 
Ā Ā  Iā€™m an Army artillery veteran and have spent my lifetime working with my hands and fixing things.Ā 
Ā  Early in 2024 I took an interest in watchmaking and learning to repair & restore pocket watches. I went crazy šŸ¤Ŗ buying up all sorts of tools, dozens of pocket watches and more than a few wristwatches from the war eras. Ā Somewhere in that process I decided I needed buy a staking set, thatā€™s where my story took a left turn at Albuquerque šŸ¤£.Ā 
Ā Ā I bought one small K&D round based set with the glass dome. Ā It was in horrible shape and missing a whole bunch of stakes and stumps. This led to me to buying a ā€œfewā€ more which allowed me to completely fill the original set and even another small K&D starter set. After showing the finished product to some guys in the industry they mentioned I should start restoring them.
Ā Ā Ā Thatā€™s where Iā€™m at now. Things have completely taken off and I never expected this level of success. It was just a hobby for an old man to stay busy and now itā€™s taken on a life of its own in some respects.Ā 
Ā Ā I joined this site back in July while searching for answers about K&D history and catalogs and immediately found discussions about the Weebly site and that was a game changer for me. Ā Without that site I would not have had the successes I have had.Ā 
Ā  Eventually Iā€™ll get back to watchmaking and learning all I can about that, but for now Iā€™m having lots of fun and keeping my hands and mind working, trying to keep myself busy and work within my physical and medical restraints. Iā€™m always learning new things and look forward to sharing what I learn here and helping where I can.Ā 
Ā Ā Thanks for having me !Ā 

Welcome to the forum, Rick!

Cool story! Always appreciate if people take a little more time to introduce themselves. Coincidentally, I spent a few hours this weeks cleaning out the insides of all my staking set punches (a German Boley set) and cleaning everything in the ultrasonic. Not really a restoration, but loved the feeling of seeing the set in full shine again and knowing that I can use it without worrying about clogged punches.

There's often threads where members look for buying advice for their first staking sets. Your inputs will certainly be appreciated.

Ā 

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3 minutes ago, Knebo said:

Welcome to the forum, Rick!

Cool story! Always appreciate if people take a little more time to introduce themselves. Coincidentally, I spent a few hours this weeks cleaning out the insides of all my staking set punches (a German Boley set) and cleaning everything in the ultrasonic. Not really a restoration, but loved the feeling of seeing the set in full shine again and knowing that I can use it without worrying about clogged punches.

There's often threads where members look for buying advice for their first staking sets. Your inputs will certainly be appreciated.

Ā 

Thank you for the warm welcome. Cleaning stakes is probably 80% of what I do daily šŸ˜³. I had issues with severe flash rust with other things and I havenā€™t tried my ultrasonic cleaner with stakes yet. I probably will now just to see how it works out. I probably have 3-4 thousand stakes at the moment and was looking for a way to clean/polish large amounts at one time. I started out using Evap O Rust soaks, which worked but still required hand polishing and severe flash rust usually happened fast.
Ā Ā Ā I found a website that polishes jewelry in a vibratory type polisher so I picked up a large one to try out. (Eventually got a smaller one also). Ā I started out with a ceramic type media, It did a great job, but I still had to hand polish each and every one and it left them like a muddy mess and clogged the ends easily.
Ā Ā Ā I then found out the big companies that specialize in polishing small pieces used a stainless steel media to clean and polish at the same time. Evidently using this method somehow burnished the stakes and prevented them from rusting easily. To get an even nicer finish they used a wet polish method and that has been the key to getting my best finish with large amounts of stakes. It just basically removes any rust and corrosion and leaves a very nice finish. I canā€™t measure any loss of material with a micrometer or a digital dial caliper. Some of these stakes are from the early 1900ā€™s and are not as durable as the newer stakes, so it varies some. I have piles of damaged stakes that wonā€™t make the cut but Iā€™m saving in case I ever get a lathe

šŸ˜‚.
Ā Ā  Ā I did notice that sometimes the holes were clogged up and still needed to clean them manually. I wonder if the Ultrasonic process would fix that ?Ā 
Ā Ā Before I ship a set I still manually go through each and every stake but sometimes I slip up and miss one or two. My processes are getting better and Iā€™m getting more organized as I go. Thanks for sharing your process. I have some Boley stuff also that I am hoping to finish up one day.

52 minutes ago, RichardHarris123 said:

Hello and welcome from Leeds, England.Ā 

Thank you very much for the welcome and I hope to visit your country one day ! As a side note, we have 2 of your countrymen that have been living with us the last couple of years off an on while they study and play football at the local university , they are teammates of our sons ā€œSoccerā€ team and we have really enjoyed hosting them and learning about šŸ“󠁧󠁢󠁄󠁮󠁧ó æ. Every time they go home for a visit they bring us lots of sweets, chocolates and gifts from their parents when they return . They are exceptional young men and great ambassadors. Ā Ā 

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