It is self-evident that a narrow pallet requires a wide tooth, and a wide pallet a narrow or thin tooth wheel; in the ratchet wheel we have a metal point passing over a jeweled plane. The friction is at its minimum, because there is less adhesion than with the club tooth, but we must emphasize the fact that we require a greater angle in proportion on the pallets in this escapement than with the narrow pallets and wider tooth. This seems to be a point which many do not thoroughly comprehend, and we would advise a close study of [Fig. 8], which will make it perfectly clear, as we show both a wide and a narrow pallet.
GH
, represents the primitive, which in this figure is also the real diameter of the escape wheel. In measuring the lifting angles for the pallets, our starting point is always from the tangents
AC
and
AD
. The tangents are straight lines, but the wheel describes the circle
GH
, therefore they must deviate from one another, and the closer to the center
A