George Daniels' Coaxial Escapements

now actually the greatest honor I would have here this week there's Beach chosen to introduce the next speaker honestly I would say he in the world of her ology and even beyond that the most prominent the most honored and the most deservedly honored of course is George Daniels everybody knows that but for those of you who don't he is a recipient of four gold medals in Neurology by the British hierarchical Institute that's the only oven I don't remember anyone else getting one I've seen I've had a silver medalist but he is a gold medalist of the British are logical Institute of the other the other horological company the clockmakers company I think and you'll forgive me if I have a little error and two others by automotive people he also builds his own cars he builds his own watches but when you take a look at his watches what's showing you anymore when we get out to the showcase these watches I hate to tell you what the people think of him one of them sold I think for two hundred thousand pounds all handmade everything everything handmade hands dialed cases the balance Springs barrel everything all and his latest watch is a minute repeater perpetual calendar equation of time and many many other things and said unto at or beyond but most of all of all the people we've had lever escapement from Mudge's time to today without much change his is the first escapement that has been a change the first type of escapement escaping natural and when it was tested at the observatory no quartz watch came as close as his was zero that's anima chemically mainspring driven timepiece he has his own ideas of the fusing mechanism or stop works or a respectfully type of mechanism he's very original it makes the case as everything it's books the book godness forgive me if i talk a little bit longer than you would you would like to have me do but he it's necessary his book watchmaking is the only book on how to make a watch not only a watch that keeps time but it do all the other things all the other things that you think of in the drawings of course are by david penny the person who drew those beautiful drawings out here but if necessary he could make them very well himself he's an unusual person he's a Renaissance man not only in watchmaking but the story goes friend of mine comes back and told me he's nothing to watch business he's I walked around with mister Daniels and he sees a place where they're selling accordions and he says what do you looked at his water you liked accordions no but I understand as a contest accordion playing next week in the the isle of man so he bought when he learned how to play the accordion anyone price prize as is but by the way there and when I went to his home he had three beautiful bicycles made in America so you see he's not completely English he's not a though he's on the Isle of Man he's a wild man he's loyal to the world his writing the book the art of breguet watches the book watches and the various other rewards he and particularly myself he is honored now he told you about Dana black bubbles here but who was dating the black well Dana Blackwell also I'll go back a little bit because he owes us to and there reflects on mr. Daniels there were three of the highest Ward's didn't watch making and what and neurology at the NA WCC to collect his organization one is the Dana J back well Award for Excellence in talk making he's the first of course recipient the next one is the one in literature and and that's the Dana J Gibbs awards and yet no one has received it however for the first time there's excellence of watchmaking and his family be free to work well anyway so they're in the black and so George Daniel is the first recipient of the Henry be freed award but he came here in preference to talk to you then to go to any WCC and or leads to accept the reward and I could say more and more but I want you to have all that time she can hear this genius of all the people who will leave a mark in Neurology it is Dana jazz Robbie it's it's Dana too but George Daniels really a man of the century [Applause] and at first mine I think Dana Blackwell for and taking my place this morning very kind of him my flex nose because it might be an is particularly poor any in the morning so I'm a faithful to pain I thank you very much and after hearing what Henley freed has to say this Bay not much time left is there so and I am once this is the 30th anniversary of the American watchmakers Institute I'm not actually mayor for that purpose although I'm very pleased to be here on this occasion but I actually am a volunteer you know I wasn't asked to come I said I think they probably wish I hadn't come at all but I volunteered to come and they Tommy could refuse and I said I wanted to give a little talk in honor of my friend Henry it because Henry first can't my notice over 40 years ago when I was a young student and I was looking for books to improve my knowledge and I want a book called the watch repairs manual and he also has a me free and I never heard of anything but I like the book very much and I learned a good thing from it and I said of course in America's claim through 1950 40 years but in fact we ready in each other for about 10 years on the personal basis and I've increased and they come to realize that I'm afraid is a quite unique men and I've also seen him as the Dean of American neurology a most extraordinary man completely unpretentious there seems to have vast knowledge on every aspect of Neurology about never pushes himself forward always without prejudice of any sort and then whom I have enormous respect for and so is it not thought I'd ever give today is in honor of my friend Henry freedom and now watches son and what you serve occupied my thoughts quite passionately innocence my very earliest recollections and I first played with watch when I was 5 years of age I understand I didn't do it very much good but they've occupied my mind in one way or another innocent sin and they're fascinating things a watch has historic intellectual technical aesthetic useful and amusing qualities and today I need you said tonight today we would just briefly touch on those aspects of the watch as related to my own interest in it I first started making watches in 1967 because I was incensed by the hysterical adulation of the courts watch by people who didn't really understand his failings and then throws a particularly upset at the time well you know the courts watch is entirely dependent on his battery and it's the dedicated ambition of any battery to commit suicide as soon as possible that said that you're likely you buy watch with a the rates of precision actively that plays no part in any civilized man's life and the next thing you wake up one day and it's stopping you have no time to talk and I felt it would be better to develop the watch so that they established its reputation in the public eyes after the adulation of the courts makers and at the same time tried to develop it towards leading a better watch that is to say I think good watch that will run to within two or three seconds a week for ten or fifteen years with our attention is to me a better watch than a quartz watch that may run for as little as ten months sometimes as much as two years on the battery of quite sure what it will do then say I'm excited to make watches was the question what sort of watches to make and it's quite a big undertaking to make ones first watch and I thought quite a lot about it and I had not any money and so I sell my watches as I made them and there was a question of which sort of watch would sell and I have had a lot of experience with collectors and antique watches I decided that I better play safe and include in the watch a little bit of all the best makers much Arnold Earnshaw and specially prego so it would attract very broad from of bias and of course one would have to include a turbulent in it because for some reason everybody believes terms are fact difficult to make much more interesting ordinary watches and so I set out to do that and they think whatever first slide please one genius I don't I we agreed on that didn't I'm in charge now that's possible say on the surface watches look the movements look something like this and there is if we have two mainspring barrels because of their they're very beneficial in giving a long power reserve before failing weak Springs and of course the couple on the center pin in reliefs the pivots of any friction it's a turbulent safety of a two-armed carriage which I prefer to any other type because I thought it'd look more elegant much lighter as a plain stainless steel balanced with four gold weights set in the ends of the spokes for regulation and then Earnshaw escapement mr. Destin there pass through here and escape wing down here and it one with a key I told myself that if you're going to buy handmade watch you would prefer to open back and ride it with a key so that you could watch the commotion going on and enjoy the watch to its fall I suspect looking back that it was because I had enough facilities to make any keys work for it but there as it were they will finish the round by key the kid is the underdog work the winding wheels for the the main Springs and he'll emotion work because the watch didn't have a conventional dial as we can see on the next slide it looks like this and it slightly unconventional because I felt I wanted the Wachusett to be different to other watchers and yet I couldn't think of anything different to do is I thought I just oxen by making this arrangement on the dial in which the hour hand announces from out of hand when it gets here he flies back to one and starts again the dials are silver engine turned silver chatterings and all signed then of London clad particularly wanted to reestablish the art of artists craftsmanship in London where it bit it had started in the 17th century and so all watches were signed Daniel's London and the style of the hands came out fortuitously because if you draw a watch on a drawing board in order to give it some substance you have to put in a bit of weight on the hands and size scratched in on the arrow there and the bar on there just to give it a weight and it since in all their hands were made like that and the bow was of individual design I didn't like the big heavy bows more whitening crowns and so the bow was fashioned especially for a watch and it has a pivoted bow here and I maintain that form of peppered throughout world watch if I made well no I made a half-dozen first watches and then they went very well and I was quite pleased with them but I was made conscious of the fact that I wasn't doing any more of them really copying earlier watches and if one wanted to do something to attract people's attention back to the mechanical watch one would have to think of something I'm more intelligent and of course it is the escapement is responsible for the timekeeping and if the time King would have improved I would have to devise some other escapement while making these watches I became conscious of my own shortcomings in regulating watches with regulating watches is quite a complex science which we're not much concern with now because the factories do it all for us they pin in the spring to the correct position after much experiment and they regulate the watches and what we had to do is clean them but there is a kiss or science in regulating watch and I didn't understand it so in order to help myself I constructed another watch which we can see in the next slide oh it's working how's it okay thank you very much and imagine started another watch or which here we see the escapement components it also was a Tokyo i will still mention treat with turbulence and this watch had a remand - and they say is the remand to our spring and the remand wha of course is a little spring which is wound up at regular intervals in order to keep a fairly constant supply of power to the oscillator and therefore a constant part which is good for their sovereign ISM here is assembled and they say you can see that the remand to a spring beneath the carriage there and here is a spring Teton but in this instance the tetanus intention you see escape knee rotates in this direction and that was just a little idea so we're trying to avoid the constant use of Earnshaw's spring besan and there's the works of the watch and here's the remand to our train up here there's the balance we've in the carriage still with a single arm you see and here is a little governor fly and there's brake drum and when we run into our glaze off the fly opens out and jams the shoes on the brake drum and maintains a steady speed of whitening that's an idea I got from a Bugatti make the car clutch and the watches will say equation of time which is quite unnecessary but you'll find when you start making watches that you're always looking for something to amuse yourself with you need a mess of mechanism here with a lemon flower because the balance has to be stopped before the remand car runs out which will happen if the main springs are allowed to run down but this break here as the watch runs down will fall down this cone and jam on the brakes on the balance of stopping running out and there's the dial of the watch and although the movement is basically the same as the earlier watches I decided to have a different dyno it had become increasingly apparent to those who bought the earlier watches that they couldn't tell the time by them and cypher will tell a somewhat more conventional dial still the eccentric hour and minute hand and I was like the idea of the second circle cutting through the minute circle still signed Daniel London must my nerve up to that stage and there here is enough and down indicator to show the development of the main springs in the air is the equation of time scale so watch um you see with the REM entire you can't control the balance amplitude for quite long periods as fixed amplitudes change them fixed amplitudes and in that way one can for example maintain the same balance at amplitude with the watch in the vertical position as you would like it to rally on the horizontal in this way one can begin to separate the separate escapement errors that so that they can then be finally eliminated a new watch by design rather than fiddling about with the spring and and the pins I never felt that term having learned how to regulate a watch and learn how to make one that he may was time I started to try and improve the mechanism and then the reason for wanting to improve it can be seen in our first bit of film if we could have that please and I made these films but you're going to see I am making cardboard cutouts and painting black lines around the edge and then moving them the frame at a time unlock shops such as animated cartoons and they come here the first piece of film please yes so you see it it's an the pitch of the lever escapement of which you may familiar I know can we focus it please thank you very much and say you're familiar with this escape and I know but it's some part of the program I want to discuss and so we must look at it again and we see that as this tooth runs down that plane there there is a sliding action across the top of the tooth from across this plane here and of course that's accompanied by friction and must-have lubrication or it won't run and weight that the impulse in each direction is equivalent to half the distance between two teeth unless only the amount and out for drop which we see now you see it drops the last part of its movement well if you have 15 teeth you see you got 15 times that distance of friction around there in elevation about 360 degrees of friction less about 30 degrees of drop 330 degrees of friction thank you can we stop the machine uh please okay so we've got 330 degrees of sliding friction for each revolution of the escape which if you think about is fairly crude sort of arrangement to have in a watch which might be twenty eight thousand eight hundred times every hour for many many years now if we can have a next bit of film please and when I never graphic a game from one to the other which I did explain and I can't work them both so hey we have the best arrangement this is the desert escapement which I'm sure most of you are familiar with and here we see that we don't have an impulse in each direction of the balance as we have in the leaver escapement we have only an impulse in one direction live for such an escapement is not suitable for modern use where violent agitation could mean that the case would revolve around the oscillator at the same speed as the oscillator and then there will be a negative movement and the watch would stop but we see that the sliding action here is named a tiny compared with the lever escapement and for each hole to space the amount of friction is not equivalent to the distance between two teeth but only to a few hundredths of a millimeter on that paddock as it gets done on the return vibration think it could be stubborn out on the reset vibration there is no impulse and so of course the escapement is unsuited for use in a wristwatch I wasn't particularly concerned with making wristwatches I rather wanted to make watch the cornices but even so I felt it wouldn't do any harm to devise an escapement that would give to each vibration of the balance the same kind of impulse that the balance received from escaping on a death an escapement with that very very tiny amount of sliding action and there's another aspect to this sliding action but when the tooth drops onto the tip of the palate and the parent advances the tooth slides rated least towards the center of motion of the oscillator just a few hundredths of a millimeter and as the centerline is passed the tooth turns and slides back until it reaches the tip of the palate and falls off again and this is a very many beneficial action because if you have a rubbing action that works first in one direction and then back in the other direction it has much beneficial effect on the materials and you may recall that the me the planet pivots of the lever escapement and they require a new lubrication because they don't rotate they oscillate and when things oscillate the surface of the metal is that of the bristles of a brush and the brushes back and forwards the bristles don't break off it rotates in the same direction all the time the surface begins to break up so this is a very beneficial action have an impulse mechanism that's required to work and many thousands of times an hour well my solution to the escapement to give the chronometer impulse each vibration was fairly naive but it might be measured to see if we could see the negative film please and here we are is quite simply to desn't escapements side by side the fence axis now has two impulse pallets a locking stone principle knocking stone here and the secondary locking stone here now as the balance rotates anti-clockwise it releases this to receive an impulse there and passes this locking to let stone I let you watch that for a while so you can you see how it happens I'm still trying to find out myself how it works it's a complex escapement but it works very well indeed you see the very tiny amounts of sliding friction there and the gain in the opposite direction it has enormous disadvantage that there are two locking one there and one there and alternately one there and now one there and there's a great disadvantage because of course it's energy subtracted from the oscillator without making any contribution to the efficiency of the escape but still it is a double impulse escapement without friction and it worked well enough from the pocket watches and such was a complexity of the movements of the watches that the Congress is absolutely loved and they do love to see a case for the wheels going round we should come to an end of this in the moment it would normally have the conventional safety Dalton roller up here but can we stop that now please reject and that brings me on to the projector game doesn't it good and so that was the escapement and now and we see what the launchers looked like that's not and here are the components you see the balance with its two impulse stones and the central unlocking pin and the end of to escape feels quite conventional debt and type escape wheels and nearly desn't with the fork and the roller hatch and the two secondly locking stones and the principal locking stone here and these watches turned out to be extremely good timekeepers and so that I was able to detect in the springs I was using which a Hamilton deck watch Springs when I got some from Hamilton in Lancaster and I tried making my own Springs but it actually wasn't very successful and I wasn't getting the threat hysteresis into the metal it's a very very complex business to make balanced Springs so I very pleased in the end to get some good Springs from Hamilton but but I noticed that there was a slight residual temperature error in the Springs not very important because pokey Watchers had normally kept a fairly constant temperatures in the pocket but still upon submitting a watch to Observatory testing then it one should be able to compensate over the whole range and so I fit in these little my metallic strips here Rittman they were just sufficient to make the difference in the compensation and here we see they compare notes in the watch to escape wheels yeah there's a central knocking stone which is cut hollow on its face so they will give draw to both wheels alternately and here the two secondary stones and the quite conventional four controller action listed out you see safeties are quite conventional there and then of course the box for the wheels and then we see the wheel train the two barrels and the wheels running down here terminating in the two escapements and this is a mechanism for the up and down the mastering indicator and because these were meant to be position watches this device is fitted which is a zeroing mechanism for the seconds hand of course the most difficult thing to set in the watch of the seconds hands and I didn't see any point in the precision watch which one was expecting to remain within the vase small compass of timekeeping everyone long peered it seemed rather silly not babe to set the seconds properly and then one watches have a device where Wendy pull the winder out the what stops and that is beneficial in some ways a much better to be able to zero it to any chosen signal so this is pushed in from outside the case and is zero seconds hand the the arrangement of the wheel chains of course makes them much very expensive but if you're making handmade watches maybe really Minds about the expense in his movement assembled seeing the balance fitted in position a simple steel down the middle and this one just for fun you see because one's always looking for something to amaze one solve this one is shockproof it has a spring down here and the dual set flexible in the end of the spring shockproof mechanism Geneva invented by Brigade and here's the view of the under this side of the watch you see with a handmade watch one doesn't take a village of metal and machine away all the unwanted stuff you take a plate and you add bits that you do want the form of production watch this would be machine now to the solidedge is it but if they did were to do that if individually made pieces here's the motion work and this should be a settings pivot somewhere plated up there so let's sum that's what what should look like from the outside the seconds hand is now divorced from the main bow because I wanted to create the impression of high-performance importance of seconds separate the seconds from the diamond with a really accurate watch you really don't need to know the hours either I mean montón managed with a minute and in the second thing but for general civil use an hour hand is useful so we include one is still signed down in London and still the same design at hand as you see which I never ever changed nor the Boehm pendant all the same and here is an up and down indicator and there is a thermometer and I felt that whilst it is sometimes made difficult procedure through life without knowing what the equation of time was very few people understood it and so I decided to fit the thermometer and that is only to make the dial more uniform and more pleasing in arrangement the aesthetics of a watch are every bit as important as mechanics say and then the next bit of film please we could actually see that escapement they briefly money there it is you say so that's proof that they actually doesn't yell apart from the joint he deceive escaped was jerking around when it's time is it thank you but pays I can see now I'm having to read this very carefully because he's not month complicated I lost my notes and I had to rewrite them wrong hardly and so there then was her a watch which would give an impulse at each vibration of the oscillator without necessity for lubrication that doesn't mean to say without lubrication because there is another facet to be continued and in concluding concerned with and that is humidity and if you have a watch which runs absolutely dry the escapement then it's rate will be affected by humidity and I'm sure that many of the small variations in rate found in some of the Hamilton phenomenas were dear to change into humidity which nobody ever bothered to record because when the mother is very humid it hits a thin film of moisture to the friction surfaces or so reduces the friction this changes the balance amplitude by very small amount but it be enough to cause a change in the rate of the watch so these escape nasaw is it is not intended that they be run without oil that only met a change in viscosity of the oil will not affect the time keeping a changing viscosity of the oil in the leaner escapement will immediately affect the timekeeping because of that lung sliding run through the oil on the pallets turn on the tip of the tooth but with the death and escapement that doesn't occur therefore change in humidity will not affect the rate now the problem was healthy one then I'll just read this Roman was now to UM devise an escapement that would do what that escapement did but in a much simpler way and this one of those Watchers performs so well that when carried in the pocket to Tokyo and back from the Isle of Man it returned just over a month later a little under one second slow I think it's fair enough to say that that's a fluke one couldn't expect a watch to do that but of course the bad watch couldn't possibly do it therefore I must him on the right path with that escapement and I had to find some way of making this gateman tactical to modern watches and simply to construct it was very expensive and then I thought a lot about this I knew there was a solution in there and I suddenly realized that when the balance is turning clockwise in the debt escapement the escape wheel Estonian to clockwise and the Desmond is turning clockwise when the balance turns anti-clockwise the escape wheel is still turning at the clockwise left we cannot have another impulse they must rotate in opposite directions but the leader of course always a rotates in an opposite direction to the balance therefore every alternative vibration believer turns in the opposite sense to the balance before the second impulse must come from the lever we must find some way of subtracting an impulse from the lever that does not require any sliding frictional as with the leaver escapin say if we could have the next bit of film please it turned out like this here we have the oscillator and and reliever the wheel is locked on this palace stone in this direction this tooth will impulse that palette in the opposite direction that tooth will impulse that palate now birth these impulses are asked for the death an escapement with the minimum sliding action you will see yeah now is a minimum sliding action and again here minimums valuation so therefore we have an action which is not going to be affected by change in humidity of the lubricant and we've dispensed with the second train of the watch which would have filled up all this space to make the whole thing we're much simpler it might be thought that the ratio of impulse between these two is different because of the ratio of radii between these two components but it's not because the ratio comes between the distance traveled by the wheel and the distance traveled by the balance and they're the same in both instances therefore the impulses are the same in both instances not that that's important it's not necessary for both impulses to build the same magnitude but usually one would seek to achieve that if possible take it so there was some an escape and you see which fulfilled the basic requirements or in bouncer each vibration without sliding friction and therefore not influenced by change in viscosity of the lubricant so now we could see picture a watch with that mechanism here we see the matter that the escaping of the first such watch as I made and this was a Tokyo and here we have the largest cave within the small one this one is made of brass that one is made of steel some people have a predilection from believing that gold wheels are more elegant elegant and better but course they're not because they very much heavier than steel and get enormous inertia just as 10 the blacklist are saying with his Vienna clocks here are the pallets same gallop in action you see as a conventional lever of these locking stones I made from pocket impulse pins and just reshape them to suit my requirements this is a ordinary lever pallet stone so that was the heart of the mechanism and here we see it assembled into the carriage two wheels and the lever here this particular example there was no safety tarp here I used messes table roller safety action because the angle of the leaver in this was 22 degrees I was nervous of using a small angle I wasn't sure how it would work and I'd had no experience I had to proceed slowly which meant making several watches with different escaping angles and the ABC the whole thing assembled in the carriage and the game we've got the compensation devices up here and for call weights for regulation which I found to be very satisfactory or therefore for the ammeter to regulate what by those weights is extremely difficult they're not really suitable for commercial use and the dial there's the dial of the watch and it's very similar to the early watches based on the same Turbie on a bush still signed Daniel's London last eleven lost my nerve and kaping same radios up man and and then I decided to change the angles of the escapement again this is a continuous process of experimenting you know the leader escapement started off with Thomas much with the escaping angles without fifty degrees and then the Swiss industry has steadily developed not just leave escape and into a really beautiful and highly efficient mechanism where not for lubricant it would be tidy satisfactory sustaining the watch for the next 200 years but it has taken a long long time for it to reach its present peak of efficiency and I'm quite sure that if this escapement were taken up it would take equally take a long time to develop it to be efficiency I will watch especially in mass production frightfully difficult for manufacture to make a change because if he in adversity lets out as I believe that how in watch company did once a great many watches with a faulty escapement you get instant condemnation by the public who totally unforgiving about that sort of thing there's a method interest on that watch I submitted it to tests at the Royal Observatory and it did actually shows there a variation of daily rate in the horizontal position after two and a half years of use and had been dismantled twice once by myself and once by a noted Swiss manufacturer who wanted to examine it and reassembles without cleaning and still it showed this very good rate and one of the reasons was that I use these end stones in the what these are the end stones for the balance of C and I ground a hollow in there and the principle of S is that the pivot rests on the edge of the crater so that its continuously biased into the hole but it can't move into the hole because it's restrained by the jewel hole as a consequence of the pressure on the side of the pivot is equal to the pressure on the end of the pivot and in this way one can eliminate the usual three seconds a day that one finds difference in rate between the horizontal and vertical rates of the watch this is another type of fun to be on using that escapement here is the escapement you see down here and these are made just again looking for variety in something more amusing here you see the cage is trimmed from its periphery by this wheel here and the objects of that is that one can dispense with the third pinion which is placed under the beyond carriage and the third wheel and the bridge for those pieces and as a consequence the watch can be made in the case of a pocket watch about two and a half millimeters thinner and so these were lacing turbulence with the movements only six millimeters in thickness and although we've still got this pendant he's the eyelet last caught up with modern technology and discovered keyless winding and I felt it's high time I did something about it because it really is a bit of a nuisance if you're traveling and you're looking around for a key to wide your watch and if you attach the key to the watch it usually scratches it so I had to face up to tall in the end and device the keyless mechanism but like the idea of an enormous winding crown up here you know they tended to dominate look at the cases on most watches and they completely destroyed the appearance of the English watch in the early 20th century so much so that you you will notice on the English watch of the earliest 20th century that they had enormous ly heavy hands and very heavy black figures on the night in order to distract some attention away from the weighty appearance of the case and so I didn't want to use that and I still don't intend to wind this watch you simply pull the bending up in one position and whine to watch and tuck it back when you finished and it's locked in position and to set the hand as you pull it up two notches so that's replacing only work robot this movement of that the dial of that watch and again they're just looking for a change you see it now has gold chapter rings and gold the second was set in there and these little plackets the a golf set in just to make a little difference but still signed and in London and the same hangs which I'm not change from these are engine turns over dies and I think you can see the engine turning in this case and one users a different form of gear share in each area not for decoration but simply to make the area's a more distinct and separate from each other well no um I took am escaping to Switzerland on invitation and it was examined by several people and I think they were quite intrigued with it but they really didn't want to know anything about getting involved in manufacture and one of the reasons talked forward was and that the watch was too thick this game was too thick with this to escape his opinion and in this perfectly true and it did matter to me because I made pocket watches but then of course I began to think well you know if it isn't baby adaptable then it's not progressive and it would not be possible for such an escapement to make a contribution to the development of the watch and therefore might be regarded as slightly inferior and then this brought home to me one day in a Swiss factory when a technician produced their main latest watch which is only two millimeters thick over the movement and the very nonchalant air he handed it to him incidences allergies when would you mind fit in your escapement into that and I nearly got me and I mean not nice imagine the flick of an eyebrow did I let him know he got me mad I went away I thought they'd heard about this and is very worrying because you know it's not good thing to be defeated and I say he looked pretty smug when he gave it to many of you really felt there's no way around this but I thought about it and I imagine I had an idea and it worked like this yeah you see nothing over here says you can all see here we have like conventional skate with this a second way to see and hear is the pinion one that's got to go beneath it but it is particular watch the space under the pallet bridge with more point five seven millimeters which is not very much it's about twenty thousand some an inch I think something like that so that no question of getting in in I've ever decided that in order to improve the intersection of the escapement components with their balance for a very small watch when of course the tolerances the clearances don't get smaller they remain the same and you begin to get very efficient I mean you can't really have less than a couple hundredths of a millimeter clearance on the components the little you cannot simply reduce the thing proportionally I decided to reduce a number of teeth in this gateway to eight and this allowed me to adopt this plan if you consider opinion like that imagine us opinion on regular and then we have the wheel driving here and that's driving in that direction that's the tooth of a wheel they say they're pushing that pending round in this direction well this is where the action takes place on that flank nothing's happening to this right we don't need it why not then cut that out like that and then we have a little point there and use that for the impulse pallet to impulse believer and let me see if you turn this in sideways you have various escape wheel and one thing is very well enough and there is the pinion there's the pivot and there's the balance cop palette cop and this is only not 0.39 height so he just straight under that space without touching top or bottom and I felt that could be the solution to my problem and I set to a made one and it wasn't very easy because the escape was only one point six millimeter diameter it's about 65 70 thousands of an inch they play much but I'd succeeded in the end I managed to do it and I got it all together and I've I felt fairly triumphant bow this and so I took it back and show manufacturers and we can see it working on our next bit of film I think yes you can see our next bit of film Pecha problem this is the tail end of the last bit we just watched this so this is the matter beyond which I showed you in Tyler with the drive at the edge of this thing there's the escape [Music] now here we have our pinion you see which announces there and this impulse comes from that tooth as before the drive wheel doesn't need both sides of the teeth so I cut away just because it's surplus weight and that's nothing to watch so that solved the problem of getting the escapement into a lathe in watch you can see the clearances are very small on this out during the same a tiny clearances everywhere in order to maintain efficiency thank you I'm so on and so I therefore put that into this watch which is too many meters thick on the movement and you see it it's an escapement in here here is the original palette all in half because we don't need the other half and then one made round here to support this gay ring which is in here no observation whatsoever may join the other part of the watch said that it was a feasibility to manufacture watches of that type and here we see the escapement in the watch you see and here is their clearance under here no point for seven millimeters and if he goes in very neatly and I inverted the roller the safety roller is above the impulse roller and this enables me to put the safety doubt at the same level as the this is wasted space here see so by turning that over I save space in the mechanism and transfer to that isn't making any contribution here is the wheel driving the double purpose escape will come pinyin in this instance the wheel is so small it's only an or point one two millimeters thick which is makes it very light so I didn't bother to cut the other half off the teeth and here is the underside of the balance it's the original balance of spring you see no change may to anything that's all simply substituting a different roller for the original leaver roller and there are the three basic components for a watch and this give you some idea of how small they are if you could ever work on 1/32 as you see I put this in English because I know Americans love they're your measurement and I don't really understand it myself and so Liam she wants you say think they might select um I'd gone to Switzerland full of hope some years ago with a new escapement and they said don't ever work drawing their own work so I went back to mine made the escapement took it back and he said no never supporting watch we didn't notice certain way and I put this game and then wrist washer took it back this is over this is a thick wristwatch we make thin wristwatches so I took it away and put it in am a thin wristwatch that share don't think is very well I mean I'm I'd be wearing it great yes never taken off - and they said we can't do it so that the end of that but they might still take an interest you never made that it would be mother farm if it promotes the industry and the Swiss industry is a very important industry and it would be rather nice if it provoked them to do something you know to think of some other way of going about their affairs and not just stay in business making watches for money and to hell with the development of it and so now just an amusement here is a a watch into which I fitted that escapement because it transpired that this intermediate wheel could be made to rotate at a speed that will be convenient to drive an independent seconds mechanism which you see here is a and these little spikes go around and they knock this way around one tooth of the time and there's a jump spring there so that we get the effect believe it or not of course watch seconds which you can say they is the second you see and it sort of jumps around and everybody says when you put the battery and that this made a couple of these watches and they're all inference by breeanna turns aberration for Brea and he did like this kind of thing and I thought is rather elegant and sir that is a I think it also said keyless you see by pulling out the top still son Daniel and as getting even more confident now in them yes now I did mention the amusing aspects of Watchers intellectual and amusing and this watch which we're going to see now this is part of a watch which was originally one of those two train watches with the double escapement in it and when the Americans entered on new halves impressed I thought what won't have his watch to commemorate they lent Leon moon to space travelers watch an idealized watch which gives inside their own time and sailor time Amaluna time and has separate seconds for each and equation of time and every sort of information you could ever wish to have wine along your package to it amount which is down to counter sometime and I know that Henry is interested in this sort of thing so I'm just going to put a few numbers on the blackboard and show you how some of this works out and I hope it impresses him I went to Mont someone but I'm ready to do so so I'm meeting son of a here we have the under dial trace and with his five interest in Luna trend now on this watch balloon the trend is derived from the side aerial element which is unusual normally he would Dilek derive the lunar trend from the mints element because we always think in terms of mean solar and lunar but by taking it from the side they're all trained I'm here among this this is in effect two twos to wheel you say because it it comes around only twice each revolution and that flicks on this debt and here which advances this wheel of 87 I want to each time and the upshot of all that number what I was supposed to be doing is that we get a reel of 87 upon two times a hundred thirteen upon 83 and they're equals 59 point two two two eight nine one and then if we divide that by two well this is two lunar phases you say we get twenty nine point six one one four four five and that's a Siberia lunar cycle and now we want to convert that to mean cellular time well we can see the ground so if we divide that by one point north north to the step seven three seven nine oh nine that equals twenty nine point five three oh five nine three and this so today's bird in the cycle and that equals not 0.42 seconds per annum only no point for two seconds per annum slow for the whole of the lunar cycles in one year so it's very close arrangement closer than knowingly he's adlai difficult man to beat and then if we consider now the other side of the watch so we can see what those wheels come to and it's really interesting that the construction of the solar side the or watch has been an intellectual exercise in theology ever since the 17th century because if you can solve the the difference on a daily basis with a computer and these so decided watches are in effect kind of computer they will compute for you every day the difference between these two times it means that if you're a manufacturer of marine kilometers like for example John Arnold the only way you can regulate your kilometers by the Stars stars are always visible and when you do you've got to make a correction each day three minutes fifty five point five five seconds a day you've got to add to that the time you're taking this is confusing and can lead to error basically ever sail aside little watch then it will automatically every day show you so so I did or time relative to sailor time therefore you check your side a long time against your star whenever you can see the star and you check your kilometer every day against the main sailor times and if we don't have to make any calculations and you can't make any mistakes if you buy a copy of watchmaking you know in there in the second edition so if you have not a second edition yet well say for the trains then sale inside there which we have up there and the most reliable figure was obtained by George markets in about 1820 1.8 seconds per annum difference between the two sides about and this watch has not any gives a closer rate at which is part of the Internet should exercise that it also has several seconds hands which George mandates wasn't able to achieve because he he put his soul aside in or ratios from the center wheels or as here they're derived from the escape wheels before we can have seconds for each which is very important because if you're going to check your watch by the Stars every day is so much point if you haven't got seconds hand some of the numbers gather 80 times 75 times 83 times 20 page apartment and these are the wheels for the trailing and these are the pinions 10 times 10 times 53 times 12 and that equals 16 thousand two hundred sixty eight point five seven one vibrations of the oscillator at each hour and then for a sailor train we have 80 times 75 times 73 times 26 upon 10 time to turn these of opinions times 7 and that equals sixteen thousand two hundred and twenty four point one five vibrations per hour if we divide one by the other we get the answer of one divided by the other there is one to one point one two one point zero zero two seven three seven nine two four I used to be able to remember these numbers you know that I'm getting a bit gaga andum so that that is the ratio we get and I'm sorry from those two figures well how useful is that well the answer is that the truth figure for this is one to one point naught naught through 7 3 7 9 ko9 and we can see at a glance that the difference between those two is 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 5 that's the difference between those two one two three four five six seven dots one five and that equals no point for two seconds behind so the side video of deceleration or point for two seconds per Hanan so that neatly knocks one point four seconds of their magis result this watch also has equation of time which might interest you to knows they simple to arrive at you need that 73 times 40 upon 4 times 2 equals 366 less number of saudi riyal days new year so that gives you the equation of time so and that was them my desire to make this watch for to commemorate the American landing on the moon and the watch looks like this there is an under dive view here is the large dial for the date of the month which works in conjunction with the equation of time which will come from there and here is the lunar disk and here with these two wheels removed and turned over you see we have more wheels underneath which engaged with these wheels here here's the death and that in effect two tooth wheel which is simply a winner with the tips pulled off all of the teeth except two is the disk of the equation of time motion work for the equation of time and here's the backplate of the watch and you have the two trainers you see running so here the different numbers of teeth in the scape is in it in all the train wheels balance wheel and here is a chronograph that's there's a lever here you see and it's this idea land sale and by moving that lever one can engage this way with either let train or this chain so that you can get side aerial seconds or solar seconds at will and you know how expensive long-distance phone calls are and if you're on your paddle shift or in space you want to make a long-distance telephone call not much time in these over seconds if you're on a side aerial telephone and then it's very important with such watch if it is to be useful and I really wanted the Americans to take us to the moon next time very important then to stop both sections hence independently and you can buy moving these levers either train can be stopped for setting the mechanism to time here the balance for the chronograph by pushing this button down we rotate this wheel in the conventional manner and this goes up and down to zero it but there's no side engagement of the wheels the wheel is permanently engaged and here is a lever which works a clutch down underneath here sort of a motor-car cone catch and the leaf there and so that there is no fidgeting of the point of when the mechanism is engaged and there's the dial and here we have this ideal symbol there the solar symbol say a time here this ideal time there 24 hours you see four side aerial time here the moon phases here the age of the moon here the date in this aperture cut out of the dial surface which agrees with the equation of time up here and here is the seconds hand for the center seconds and so when there is the space travellers watch which I think you might fulfill the descriptions of intellectual and amusing it might even be useful one day and then finally that piece be upside down not very important this is a watch which I made for an exhibition in London and I decided it was time to abandon all my desire to make improvements in the watch why not turn the clock back a hundred years and putting all the stuff they used to put in all those years ago to make the watch a bad time killer and inefficient because it's raining so much work around with it but this one does have a terribly on with the Daniels collects in escapement there's the wheel it's the latest escapement with the intermediate wheel here and this is equation of time scale that is an up-and-down indicator work from that tone to indicator stated whining in the springs and here is the date for the equation of time the gongs here because the watch is a minute repeater here's a view under the dial of the perpetual calendar mechanism and I think this is an original mechanism and it has the merit that a it's very simple in the section which deals with phillipe usually it's very complex either you have a dial a subsidiary dial on the main dial which gives four sets of months which is impossible to read if you're over 12 years of age and or else you have a single indication on the diet and you have to have a little planet wheel in here which were wristwatch is practically difficult to make and sometimes unreliable that this mechanism dispenses with that has a separate came inside here which is work by these wheels at the side this lever works the moving phase is up here together straight teeth per movement down here as it can this this lever which falls off at midnight advances this wheel one tooth when it gets to the end of the month the wheel lifts up this catch the hand falls back to zero and then this rack which is engaged with opinion underneath knocks this lever and advances the month on one the month wheel on one month and down here is a small rack with opinion and there Teli strip and that works a thermometer on the dial these are the leaders at the age for setting the calendar the function of the calendar occurs at midnight for all functions and it happens instantaneously there's no creepy crawly anything happens bang on midnight at one blurry even the change to leap year and there is no complication in setting because these lemurs can be used at any hour of the day just to reset what and here is the movement under the die showing the minute repeating work which is fairly conventional based on the design of the conventional Swiss repeating work which i think is attributable to Enric at and so here's the diet with golden leg chattering the date disposed around the edge of the dial it the hand is retrograde it advances one day each day and at the appropriate end of the month it will fly back to zero it doesn't cross the second style here is the thermometer hand here the seconds and thousand minutes the day of the week dial the month of the year and the Li pure indication here you see this little hand is in the leap year sector so that we know this is the first year of the bisects though here is the month I here the lunar phases the lunar phases are reverse of normal lunar phases because by this method of not showing the whole moon and cuffing off with an obstruction on the dial by this method we can have the proper shape moving both waxing and waning we're still saying Daniels London I couldn't think of anything else to put on there and to mind it you again pull up the pendant and want it and I think should say when I started I said them is that the watch had many qualities historic intellectual technical aesthetic useful and amusing and I hope you felt that I touched on some aspect of each one of those thank you very much [Applause]

Channel: AWCI

Views: 47,291

Keywords: George Daniels, Coaxial Escapement, Escapement, Watches, Watchmaking, Watch Repair, Omega, BHI, British Horological Institute, Henry B. Fried, HSNY, Horology, Horological

Id: 0UOU36cJgZY

Length: 69min 36sec (4176 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 27 2017