AN IMPROVEMENT IN WATCHES AND OTHER TIME-KEEPERS, AND AN IMPROVED ESCAPEMENT WHEEL OR PALLET TO BE EMPLOYED THEREIN
Year: 1858

page_text: application for Letters Patent was not given within the time prescribed
by the Act:)
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by James Ferguson Cole' at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 5th March
1858.
I, JAMES FERGUSON COLE, of Devonshire Street, in the County of Middlesex,
Watch and Chronometer Maker, do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "AN IMPROVEMENT IN WATCHES AND OTHER TIME-KEEPERS, AND
AN IMPROVED ESCAPEMENT WHEEL OR PALLET TO BE EMPLOYED THEREIN," to be as
follows:-
My Invention relates to that part of watches and time-keepers known as
the escapement, and consists in imparting to the lever of impulse a new power
or property of resilient action, which allows the ruby pin or pallet to pass
when making more than an entire revolution from the point of rest by
displacing the lever a little, which instantly resumes its proper position. The
ruby pin in returning first enters the fork, and immediately unlocks the
wheel at the high tension of the balance spring, by the force of which and
the momentum of the balance, the ruby pin will be carried out of the fork
in the same direction; and pass the lever on the reverse side of the line
of centres without entering the fork or unlocking the wheel again until the
balance returns in the contrary direction. The ruby pin will also by the
resilient action of the lever and the momentum of the balance be restored to
its first condition of simple action. In this manner the action will be repeated
to any extent with certainty, preserving correctly the time of the watch.

page_text: My Invention also consists on a new form of escapement wheel. The
resilient action may be produced in various ways, but that which I prefer, and
find to answer in practice in the detached lever escapement, consists in the
employment of my improved escapement wheel. This improvement consists
in giving to the escapement wheel teeth an additional forward angle contrary
to and below the locking face of each tooth, and leaving the usual form of
the anchor pallets unaltered, or, vicè versa, the additional angle may be made
to diverge from each locking face of the anchor pallets, employing the ordinary
club or ratchet-toothed wheels. The pallets carry the lever arm in the usual
way, the arm having only a simple notch cut in the acting end as a fork,
terminating in a pair of thin edges to give impulse on a ruby pin or pallet
attached to the balance axis, or otherwise on a simple steel or gold pin inserted
in the balance arm or through the axis, and using or omitting the use of the
usual guard pin and detaining roller. The common lever pallets, having the face
of each locking slightly inclined from a tangental dead plane pressure from the
point of the wheel tooth, will draw either pallet inward against the old banking,
this being the first or common recoil producing detachment of the lever as by the
old ratchet toothed wheel; but otherwise, if the pallet is checked at any depth
sufficient for locking the wheel by a reverse angle formed on the forward face of
each tooth. The locking extremities of the pallets will rest alternately on the
conjuncture of those two planes which now substitute the common banking,
and if further motion be given to either pallet inwardly against the newly-
formed angle on the tooth or teeth, the pallet inaction will be repelled by the
wheel pressure, thus producing the additional second recoil in the reverse
direction outwardly, and thereby giving to the lever of impulse a new property
or power of resilient action. The effect of the double recoil was in the first
instance produced on common pallets by putting the ratchet-toothed brass or
gold wheel reversely on the 'scape pinion, and by a very simple and correct
process bending the point of each tooth outwardly and forward over the back
slope until a sufficient angle for locking was formed by the bent points. This
mode admits of the alteration being made with complete effect to any lever
watch having the common ratchet-toothed wheel, and for its extreme simplicity
and convenience of application is found to be preferable in a commercial point
of view. By the above mode ready-manufactured watches in stock, or watches
in use, may be altered at small expense.