Escapement, Virgule—An early form of escapement invented about 1660 by Abbe Hautefeuille. Its action can be readily understood from the diagram.
Escape Pinion—The pinion on the escape-wheel arbor.
Escape Wheel—The last wheel of a train: it gives impulse to the balance, indirectly. Also called scape wheel. Easily identified by teeth resembling those of a circular saw.
Face—1. Of a watch or clock is the dial. 2. Of the tooth of a wheel, that portion beyond the pitch line.
Facio, Nicolas—A Geneva watchmaker who invented the art of piercing jewels for use in watches, and in May, 1705, obtained a patent therefor in London. In December of the same year when he petitioned for a more extended patent he was opposed by the Clockmakers' Company, who produced in evidence proof that Facio was not first in this use of jewels, in an old watch of Ignatius Huggeford's with an amethyst mounted on the cock of the balance wheel. Facio's petition was denied. It was later discovered that Huggeford's jewel had nothing to do with the mechanism of the watch.
Favre, Perret E.—In 1876 the chief commissioner in the Swiss Department and a member at that time of the International Jury on Watches at the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia. On his return home he was very emphatic in his endorsement of the American method of manufacture as compared to the Swiss.
Fitch E. C.—Made president of the Waltham Watch Co., in 1886. His long experience in watch case and movement making and his commercial training made his judgment on matters relating to watchmaking of value. He was the inventor of the screw bezel case.
Flank—The flank of a wheel or pinion is the part lying between the pitch circle and the center.
Flirt—Any device for causing the sudden movement of a mechanism.
Fly—A speed regulating device or governor consisting of a fan or two vanes upon a rotating shaft. Used in the striking part of clocks. By some believed to have been used on the earliest clocks—before the verge escapement—to check a too rapid descent of the weight.