Reply To: Cylinder Escapement

[Bob Tascione]

You bet Chris!
If you zoom in on your pic you can see why I say the leaves can bite a little into the hub to keep it from rotating. The ends of these leaves become the rivet and can bite into and help lock the arbor into the wheel. If the leaves were turned off then the rivet would have a smooth underside and might be more prone to slipping. Then again I don’t know how effective that locking would be with a hardened escape wheel as the pinion is almost certainly tempered a little to allow for riveting without breaking and to protect the pivot. Anyway…at least that’s my theory. Might be wrong but kinda makes sense to me! I have seen escape wheels that were not riveted on but just pressed in place. That doesn’t seem like good practice to me. These may have been replacement wheels or pinions and not how they were manufactured? I’m sure others up here have experienced loose and tilted cylinder escape wheels. Maybe this could have been avoided with a good rivet. Of course the rivet also helps keep the wheel from falling off of the arbor!
Please let us know how it turns out Chris,
Adios for now!
Bob