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Besides the usual screw-feed and lever-feed tailstocks, Stark, like many other makers of high-class watch-making equipment, offered a special "Three-spindle Tumble Tailstock". This unit was intended to be employed where two or three tools could be used in succession on light production work. The three spring-loaded spindles - all of the "light sliding type", 6 inches long and fitted with adjustable depth stops - were mounted in a swing frame, pivoted on studs mounted in the base plate; the frame was indexed into each of its three positions by a spring-loaded pawl. A later version of this unit, which differed in a number of significant ways, can be seen here.
Early version of the Stark "Three-spindle Tumble Tailstock".
Lever-action tailstock on a screw-feed operated set-over base. The later version of this unit had a much wider base slide.
Standard Stark screw-feed tailstock. This early version had an ordinary barrel (spindle) which became less well supported the further out it came. Later versions were built with one of the trade-marks standard of the precision lathe, a long barrel which was fully supported at both ends of its travel. The section of the casting between base and barrel had a very thin cross section - a point not obvious in this view.
The very simplest of the Stark tailstocks was the traditional "sliding-barrel" type - operated by pushing and pulling on the ebony or hardwood end cap.