Talk:Riefler escapement

Dicussion about Riefler's escapement without some back ground on Riefler himself, and what he wished to accomplish with this escapement defeats the purpose of this article. References would also hopefully point to printed materials as well as Internet sources. Both would be welcome. Some further discussion of Riefler as a horologist would be helpful too. For example, a discussion of Riefler's watch escapement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.216.97.231 (talk • contribs) 01:20, 4 May 2007‎ There is a link to the article on Sigmund Riefler that does provide background. As to what he wished to accomplish, that is obvious to any student of horology: he wished to invent an escapement that would allow more accurate timekeeping. The article mentions use of his clocks in astronomical and naval observatories, and as reference time standards. As such accuracy is paramount, moreso than with any other type of timepiece.

I don't know how useful mention of his watch escapement would be. The escapement was never mass produced, and no examples are known to exist. It might be relevent to the Sigmund Reifler biographical article but not here, as the watch escapement was necessarily different from his pendulum clock escapement.

There is a more important problem with this article. Riefler invented two pendulum clock escapements. The simpler one was patented in 1889, and was used during his lifetime. However, he also patented (German patent) a gravity version of his pendulum escapement that was even more accurate. The patent was published posthumously in 1913, and was used in the most accurate models of Riefler clocks well into the 20th century. This article does not distinguish between the two, and generally provides little detail on either escapement. It is difficult to understand how the 1889 escpement works from the drawings provided, and one would never know that it was not the version that achieved the greatest accuracy, rivaling the Shortt clocks that superseded the first-generation Reiflers.Eljefe3126 (talk) 06:39, 4 December 2017 (UTC)