Kendrick & Davis were not very helpful in their catalogs and brochures when it came to documenting the stumps used in the Inverto tools.
In some of the later catalogs (e.g. the 1961 catalog and the catalog excerpt from ca. 1972-1993), there are lists and illustrations for many of the later stumps, but no indication of which were included with the various Inverto tools. In some of the product brochures (e.g. the ca. 1945-1952 Inverto 18B/R brochure), stump tables are supplied with clear numbering and dimensions but the small, low-resolution illustrations aren't very useful.
The 1937 Inverto 18 brochure provides some new information. Not only does it contain the details of the stumps included in the Inverto 18 sets of that era, it also contains the clearest illustrations of the stump designs I've found to date.
Of course, it would be too easy for K&D to simply give us a table of stumps with clear illustrations, numbering, and dimensions all in the same place.
Despite the clear illustrations, the information about the individual stumps in the 1937 Inverto 18 brochure is a bit cryptic. So, I've created this page to help decode it.
In some of the later catalogs (e.g. the 1961 catalog and the catalog excerpt from ca. 1972-1993), there are lists and illustrations for many of the later stumps, but no indication of which were included with the various Inverto tools. In some of the product brochures (e.g. the ca. 1945-1952 Inverto 18B/R brochure), stump tables are supplied with clear numbering and dimensions but the small, low-resolution illustrations aren't very useful.
The 1937 Inverto 18 brochure provides some new information. Not only does it contain the details of the stumps included in the Inverto 18 sets of that era, it also contains the clearest illustrations of the stump designs I've found to date.
Of course, it would be too easy for K&D to simply give us a table of stumps with clear illustrations, numbering, and dimensions all in the same place.
Despite the clear illustrations, the information about the individual stumps in the 1937 Inverto 18 brochure is a bit cryptic. So, I've created this page to help decode it.
The stump table has two or three numbers arrayed around each stump illustration.
The top number is the stump number. The left number (if present) is the outer diameter of the stump, usually according to the Stubs' gage. The bottom number (if present) is the inner diameter of the stump, usually according to the Stubs' gage. Some stumps have other annotations (e.g. the slot size or some detail about the stump's use) below the stump illustration. All together now..."Stubs' Gage? What the...?". Turns out it's an archaic system of measurement invented in the 1800s and sometimes called the Birmingham Wire Gage. Or is it? Have a look at the page from "Staking Tools and How To Use Them" shown below. To make things even more complicated, there are two different versions of Stubs' Gage. The Stubs' Iron Wire Gage is the one also called the Birmingham Gage. The Stubs' Steel Wire Gage, used here, is for drawn steel wire & drill rod. Confused yet? Back before we had nice, consistent systems of measurement like the metric system, who was using what to measure things could be a bit of a mess. |
K&D, being an old-school 19th-century company, used Stubs' Steel Wire Gage in "Staking Tools and How To Use Them" in 1910. Most of the stake dimensions on pages 32 & 33 are in Stubs' gage. In 1937 Stubs' gage was still popular enough for them to use in the Inverto 18 brochure. It is curious that they did so because, even back in 1910, they felt compelled to include a Stubs' gage to millimeter conversion chart. Page 31 of "Staking Tools and How To Use Them", which contains the conversion chart, is shown at left. Even using the now obscure Stubs' gage system wasn't confusing enough for K&D. Some of the stumps have dimensions in inches, either fractional or decimal! |
Despite K&D's best efforts to make it difficult for us, I'd like this table to be as useful as possible to people looking for more detailed information about the earlier K&D stump designs.
To that end, I've created annotated versions of the table with all the dimensions converted to millimeters. I didn't take the time to replace the stump numbers because they are readable as is when the images are printed, particularly on the b&w version. High resolution (600 dpi) files are available for download below.
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