Glossary/Balance
Balance
A balance is a controlling device for clocks and watches which, through the escapement, momentarily unlocks and re-locks the gears at short intervals to move the hands. Impulses from the escapement keep the balance swinging to and fro. The first form of balance was the foliot, which was a bar with weights on the ends and was used on large clocks in the thirteenth century. In the fourteenth century for watches and smaller clocks, this type of balance evolved into the dumbell and eventually the balance wheel.