Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The verge (or crown wheel) escapement is the earliest known type of mechanical escapement, the mechanism in a mechanical clock that controls its rate by allowing the gear train to advance at regular intervals or 'ticks'. Verge escapements were used from the late 13th century until the mid 19th century in clocks and pocketwatches.
The first mechanical escapement, the verge escapement, was invented in medieval Europe during the 13th century and was the crucial innovation that led to the development of the mechanical clock. The design of the escapement has a large effect on a timepiece's accuracy, and improvements in escapement design drove improvements in time measurement ...
A detail of the Salisbury Cathedral clock, showing the verge and foliot. The invention of the verge and foliot escapement in c.1275 [87] was one of the most important inventions in both the history of the clock [88] and the history of technology. [89] It was the first type of regulator in horology. [6]
The existing clocks of the time, which used the verge escapement with a crude balance wheel, were very inaccurate. The pendulum, due to its isochronism, could be a much better timekeeper. His son Vincenzio began building a clock, but both he and Galileo died before it was completed.
The volume on clockmaking contained highly detailed instructions for the production of a weight-driven, striking clock with a verge escapement controlled by a foliot. [8] Relatively high literacy rates and an enthusiastic, book-lending society contributed greatly to the work's widespread readership. [9]
A string-suspended verge would reduce friction greatly and make the clock run more evenly; the foliot swings at an angle and not exactly horizontally; the escapement wheel and the pallets of the verge do not engage very exactly. This leads to the verge pallets "falling" onto the escapement teeth causing a lot of vibration in the verge and foliot.
Johann Mannhardt (1798–1878), German maker of turret clocks, Munich, Mannhardt-Escapement, turret clock Münchner Frauenkirche. Joseph Saxton (1799–1873), American clockmaker, inventor and instrument maker, Philadelphia. Joseph Thaddäus Winnerl (1799–1886), Austrian watchmaker, Paris, marine chronometer.
The accuracy of the pendulum clock was increased by the invention of the anchor escapement in 1657 by Robert Hooke, which quickly replaced the primitive verge escapement in pendulum clocks. The first tower clock with the new escapement was the Wadham College Clock, built at Wadham College, Oxford, UK, in 1670, probably by clockmaker Joseph ...