Tid-Bit 4 - The Joys of Pallets
Published in the 4/2010 NAWCC Bulletin, page 191
Those of you that know me are aware that my true love in the horological world is regulators, both Viennese and Precision regulators. There are many reasons for this affection, but one that stands out is the ability of these clocks to keep time rather, well, precisely. Many factors contribute to their precision, but a significant one is the use of a dead beat escapement. While invented by Richard Towneley, and first used by Thomas Tompion in 1675, George Graham popularized the escapement in 1715 and is generally credited with its development.
The “Graham Dead Beat Escapement” offers two significant improvement over the anchor escapement: (1) The pendulum is not being constantly being pushed by an escape wheel tooth throughout its cycle, thus allowing the pendulum to move freely during most of its swing. This significantly improves the pendulums isochronism. (2) The escapement does not push the escape wheel backward (commonly called “recoil”) during part of its cycle. This reduces wear in the clocks gears, and improves the accuracy of the mechanism.
Read MoreThose of you that know me are aware that my true love in the horological world is regulators, both Viennese and Precision regulators. There are many reasons for this affection, but one that stands out is the ability of these clocks to keep time rather, well, precisely. Many factors contribute to their precision, but a significant one is the use of a dead beat escapement. While invented by Richard Towneley, and first used by Thomas Tompion in 1675, George Graham popularized the escapement in 1715 and is generally credited with its development.
The “Graham Dead Beat Escapement” offers two significant improvement over the anchor escapement: (1) The pendulum is not being constantly being pushed by an escape wheel tooth throughout its cycle, thus allowing the pendulum to move freely during most of its swing. This significantly improves the pendulums isochronism. (2) The escapement does not push the escape wheel backward (commonly called “recoil”) during part of its cycle. This reduces wear in the clocks gears, and improves the accuracy of the mechanism.
During the extremities of the pendulum's swing, the escape wheel tooth rests against a locking, or “deadbeat” face, which provides no impulse to the pendulum (eliminating recoil in the gear train). Near the bottom of the pendulum's swing the tooth slides off the locking face onto the angled "impulse" face, giving the pendulum a push, before the pallet releases the tooth.
