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The Encyclopedia of Horology

Detached escapement

Co-axial escapement

Verified

A three-level escape wheel and auxiliary lever transmit impulse through largely radial rather than sliding contact, reducing the sliding friction that consumes lubricant in a conventional Swiss lever escapement.

Schematic arrangement

How it is laid out

Co-axial wheel pairBalance

Outline schematic only, drawn to show the characteristic arrangement of wheel, locking member and oscillator. It is not a dimensioned working drawing and should not be used for setting up or repairing a movement.

Advantages

  • Reduced friction at the impulse faces
  • Longer intervals between servicing in principle
  • A genuine twentieth-century structural innovation rather than a lever refinement

Drawbacks

  • More complex and costly to manufacture
  • Long associated mainly with Omega's proprietary production

Attribution and period

Developed by George Daniels from the 1970s–1980s; introduced commercially by Omega from 1999

Horological firsts are frequently contested. Where an invention is attributed to a named maker, that attribution is recorded as such rather than treated as settled fact.

Photographs

Co-axial 01
Co-axial 01 — Manfredgoellner, CC BY-SA 4.0. Wikimedia Commons file page
Co-axial 02
Co-axial 02 — Manfredgoellner, CC BY-SA 4.0. Wikimedia Commons file page
CoAxial
CoAxial — Adithyamc Gaming, CC BY-SA 4.0. Wikimedia Commons file page

Photographs are matched automatically from freely licensed Wikimedia Commons material. Each caption states the actual subject of the image and credits its author; where a close match for this escapement does not exist, a related mechanism may be shown instead.