Dear friends

I finished watching the interview series with George Daniels (i.e. master watchmaker and inventor of the co-axial escapement) and got a question: why omega puts lubricant on the escapement?

To quote George Daniels:
"I was interested in precision time keeping, not luxury watches.... Proper watches, like the one they used on the moon."

And:
"Co-axial escapement... didn't require lubrication, so the problem was solved.
I tested it for 20 years, not because I wanted, but because I couldn't find anyone in industry to took interest on it.
But during those 20 years it proved itself a superlative timekeeper.
It didn't need lubrication, so it wasn't affected by temperature."

So Daniels invented the co-axial escapement to:
a) Improve precision of mechanical watches.
b) To remove the lubricant from the escapement (i.e. oils will change viscosity depending on the temperature, thus changing the friction and the precision along the day and seasons).
c) To create a escapement that had basically no friction.

It was tested for over 20 years by Daniels himself, so it is 100% sure that it works as intended.

All considered, why Omega puts oil in the co-axial escapement? It doesn't make any sense.

 

This other video is pretty cool too, where Daniels explains how the co-axial works:

 

Did You try a " Why is lubrication important ? " search on Google ... good question though

 

When in doubt, always put lube on it.

 

I Googled the question. Without any in depth research into the answers, I noted a surprising lack of suggestions about the use of “penetrating” lube. Probably not suitable for use on co-axial escapements, either.

 

Lubrication is required to prevent wear, because despite what George Daniels might have said, there is clearly friction in the escapement...

The thin pointed tip of the co-axial wheel teeth going over the sharp corner of the pallet fork stone can chew the wheel up pretty badly.



Cheers, Al

 

@Archer: that makes sense for the 2500A to D caliber series, since the co-axial escapement was retrofitted in a base ETA movement.

But what about the new caliber 8500 (and friends) where the co-axial escapement is, in theory, the way that Daniels designed it?

 

There was a brief discussion recently on the subject.

 

No difference

 

Would lubricant stay for any meaningful length of time in that area though ? If the contact is just at the tip, and there’s a point contact scraping along the pallet stone, then surely the contact area is going to be lubricant free pretty quickly ?

 

The more I read about it, and the lengths Omega have had to got to to make the Co-ax thing remotely reliable, I do now hold the view that Daniels ideas, on this score at least are basically Kool Aid. Adapting a free sprung balance across the board without messing with the escapement would been a much easier advance and we wouldn't need countless versions of movements while Omega chase their tails trying to engineer the reliability back in.