Friction, Lubrication and the Lubricants in HorologyLewis, W. T. (William T.)
Science
Friction, Lubrication and the Lubricants in Horology
Lewis, W. T. (William T.)
Clock and watch making; Friction; Lubrication and lubricants
Several facts of great interest to the horologist are here shown.
[9]
Edward Rigg has this to say in regard to the apparatus of Jenkin and
Ewing. "The friction, then, is true sliding friction without any
rolling, and it will be evident that if the bearing were a circular hole
just large enough to admit the pivot freely, the character of the
friction would be in no way changed. In both a watch and clock the
pivots are pressed against the sides of the pivot holes, either by the
motive force or by gravity. There is no rolling round the pivot holes,
so that the friction is all of the first kind. Jenkin's experiments
are, then, _strictly applicable to the case of pivots_,[10] and they
constitute, so far as I am aware, the first scientific determination of
the friction that occurs in time-keepers, and even in these experiments,
the pressure, due to the weight of 86 pounds, is evidently too great,
and thus too little regard is paid to the influence of adhesion."
E. Rigg further states that, reverting to the preceding table, we notice
the following points of interest:--
1. "When the oil has dried up, the friction of a steel pivot in brass is
actually less than in agate.
2. "A greater diminution of friction, by the application of oil, is
effected when steel is used with steel, than where steel is used with
brass or agate; although the fluid friction is probably equal in the
three cases, when oil is used.
3. "With a perfect, non-drying, non-oxidizing lubricant, steel bearings
for pivots would be preferable to brass bearings. Hence, with anything
short of an approximately perfect oil, the brass is most serviceable.
4. "Brass pivot holes are much less affected by the drying of the oil
than agate holes would be; and, in the absence of experiment, we must
assume that this would be the case with ruby or other jewels.
5. "When the oil is perfectly fresh, agate and steel have a very low
coefficient of friction."
How much these results would be altered by the use of a disk of such
weight, and pivots of such proportionate size, as to meet the actual
requirements in horology, remains to be ascertained.
Certainly the experiments of Jenkin, are _not_ applicable to the pivots
of a watch, as stated by E. Rigg; especially are they not applicable to
the friction of pivots in the escapement, where the laws of fluid
friction are more nearly applicable; and when it is remembered that the
weight of the disk was 86 pounds, and the pivots .25 c. m. in diameter,
(or about the size of pivot of a large barrel arbor,) it is evident that
the solid friction produced was much in excess of that produced in even
the heavy part of the train of a watch.
Furthermore, even Jenkin and Ewing, in their paper, state "that, owing
to the very great intensity of the pressure on the small bearing
surfaces of the axle, the lubricants must have been to a great extent
forced out." In a properly made watch, with a good lubricant, this does
not occur.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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