To illustrate, the writer has met several students of the lever escapement who could make drawings of either club or ratchet-tooth escapement with the lock on the entrance pallet; but when required to draw a pallet as illustrated at Fig. 23, could not do it correctly.  Occasionally one could do it, but the instances were rare.  A still greater poser was to request them to delineate a pallet and tooth when the action of escaping was one-half or one-third performed; and it is easy to understand that only by such studies the master workman can thoroughly comprehend the complications involved in the club-tooth lever escapement.

AN APT ILLUSTRATION.

As an illustration:  Two draughtsmen, employed by two competing watch factories, each designs a club-tooth escapement.  We will further suppose the trains and mainspring power used by each concern to be precisely alike.  But in practice the escapement of the watches made by one factory would “set,” that is, if you stopped the balance dead still, with the pin in the fork, the watch would not start of itself; while the escapement designed by the other draughtsman would not “set”—­stop the balance dead as often as you choose, the watch would start of itself.  Yet even to experienced workmen the escape wheels and pallets looked exactly alike.  Of course, there was a difference, and still none of the text-books make mention of it.

For the present we will go on with delineating our exit pallet.  The preliminaries are the same as with former drawings, the instructions for which we need not repeat.  Previous to drawing the exit pallet, let us reason on the matter.  The point r in Fig. 23 is located at the intersection of pitch circle a and the radial line A c; and this will also be the point at which the tooth C will engage the locking face of the exit pallet.

This point likewise represents the advance angle of the engaging tooth.  Now if we measure on the arc k (which represents the locking faces of both pallets) downward one and a half degrees, we establish the lock of the pallet E.  To get this one and a half degrees defined on the arc k, we set the dividers at 5”, and from B as a center sweep the short arc i, and from the intersection of the arc i with the line B e we lay off on said arc i one and a half degrees, and through the point so established draw the line B f.

Now the space on the arc k between the lines B e and B f defines the angular extent of the locking face.  With the dividers set at 5” and one leg resting at the point r, we sweep the short arc t, and from the intersection of said arc with the line A c we draw the line n p; but in doing so we extend it (the line) so that it intersects the line B f, and at said intersection is located the inner angle of the exit pallet.  This intersection we will name the point n.