The escapement was fully hardened, and now it’s all polished up.
While most of this piece of steel was polished for aesthetic purposes, there are four surfaces that needed to be an absolutely perfect, mirror-finish - the surfaces that interact with the escape wheel.
That piece of steel rocks back and forth with the swing of the pendulum, interrupting the spin of the escape wheel. When it does, the surfaces that stop the escape wheel slide across the tip of each tooth. In order to slide friction-free, those surfaces needed to be polished to a mirror-finish.
In addition to the finish, the geometry needs to be perfect, so rather than attacking it with buffing wheels, I methodically polished it in steps. First with small precision polishing stones, and then soft wood sticks and very fine-grit diamond paste.
I’ve already checked the wheel & escapement on a test plate. Everything seems to be working as it should.
On to the next thing!
