As pioneers in the business of supplying watchmaker's lathes (and specialized watch-making machinery) Stark can be forgiven for ploughing their own furrow and making most of their lathes incompatible with the established standards of the day, especially the all-conquering WW type. The company also produced many specials, of a different specification to the ordinary lathes, yet all based upon standard components. Not only were Stark accessories not useable on other makers' lathes (in comparison to the wide interchangeability of the WW type) but the expensive collets were also unique and not transferable to other makes of watchmaker lathe that a potential customer might already own.
Stark watchmakers' lathes were listed by numbers and are known to have included the  1,   2,   3 and  Model E.  The lathe illustrated on this page, with its 15.5-inch long, 1.5-inch wide bed and 65mm centre height, is either a Model 3 or E, and the largest or next-to-largest in the range. Apart from its size it appears, with the exception of a few small  refinements, to have been a beautifully-made if conventionally designed lathe. Whilst many watchmaker-lathe headstocks had two or more rings of indexing holes drilled in the outer face of the headstock pulley (together with a locking arrangement based on a long, flat spring-steel arm pivoting from a point on the headstock) the Stark had just a single ring of holes - though a generous 120 in total. The indexing system was, however, much more rigid than many makes with the spindle held positively by a pin contained within a separate housing screwed to the headstock and able to be positioned at either its front or back. To allow the use of a larger indexing plate (as would commonly have been either screwed to the outer face of the drive pulley or secured on the end of the spindle) an additional mounting point for a conventional spring arm was provided (with a set-screw for retention) on the rear face of the headstock. The collets were the usual Stark specials, sized differently to other makers with a 9.1 mm body diameter (0.305 in.) a length of 1.745", a 20º angle and a 40 tpi thread.
The D-shaped bed, with beveled sides and wide central T slot, was of a common watchmaker-lathe design and cast in one piece.
The "Swing Tailstock" was of a similar design to those used on the larger Stark bench lathes  and worked in exactly the same way with the three fingers enabling different dimensions to be used for jewelling without having to reset for each change in diameter.
If any reader has a Stark watchmakers' lathe the writer would be interested to hear from them.
Stark watchmakers' lathes continued here..