[Illustration:  Fig. 80]

We shall next give detailed instructions for drawing such a double roller as will be adapted for the large model previously described, which, as the reader will remember, was for ten degrees of roller action.  We will also point out the necessary changes required to make it adapted for eight degrees of fork action.  We would beg to urge again the advantages to be derived from constructing such a model, even for workmen who have had a long experience in escapements, our word for it they will discover a great many new wrinkles they never dreamed of previously.

It is important that every practical watchmaker should thoroughly master the theory of the lever escapement and be able to comprehend and understand at sight the faults and errors in such escapements, which, in the every-day practice of his profession, come to his notice.  In no place is such knowledge more required than in fork and roller action.  We are led to say the above chiefly for the benefit of a class of workmen who think there is a certain set of rules which, if they could be obtained, would enable them to set to rights any and all escapements.  It is well to understand that no such system exists and that, practically, we must make one error balance another; and it is the “know how” to make such faults and errors counteract each other that enables one workman to earn more for himself or his employer in two days than another workman, who can file and drill as well as he can, will earn in a week.

PROPORTIONS OF THE DOUBLE-ROLLER ESCAPEMENT.

The proportion in size between the two rollers in a double-roller escapement is an open question, or, at least, makers seldom agree on it.  Grossmann shows, in his work on the lever escapement, two sizes:  (1) Half the diameter of the acting roller; (2) two-thirds of the size of the acting roller.  The chief fault urged against a smaller safety roller is, that it necessitates longer horns to the fork to carry out the safety action.  Longer horns mean more metal in the lever, and it is the conceded policy of all recent makers to have the fork and pallets as light as possible.  Another fault pertaining to long horns is, when the horn does have to act as safety action, a greater friction ensues.

In all soundly-constructed lever escapements the safety action is only called into use in exceptional cases, and if the watch was lying still would theoretically never be required.  Where fork and pallets are poised on their arbor, pocket motion (except torsional) should but very little affect the fork and pallet action of a watch, and torsional motion is something seldom brought to act on a watch to an extent to make it worthy of much consideration.  In the double-roller action which we shall consider, we shall adopt three-fifths of the pitch diameter of the jewel-pin action as the proper size.  Not but what the proportions given by Grossmann will do good service; but we adopt the proportions named because it enables us to use a light fork, and still the friction of the guard point on the roller is but little more than where a guard roller of half the diameter of the acting roller is employed.