It's a really nice diary. Can you explain in layman's terms what an escapement is and does? (I've always wondered).

The clocks on your site are stunning, everybody should take a look (imho).

Here's the link : Arcadian Clock site.

To learn how to embed a link like this, see How do I embed a link?

I know next to nothing about mechanical clocks, so what I write below are half suggestions half questions:

• If there was some early non-European (and non-European-colonies) clockmaking, could you also write on that?
  
• Developments in one field are often first enabled by another field. I have no clue if and then to what extent, but suspect that, say, new metal smeltering methods enabled more precise clocks. Could you point out some such connections to other developments as you describe the stages of clockmaking development?
  
• Astronomy and clockmaking have a long connection, so I suspect you wanted to deal with that anyway. But could you write a diary about the firsts of one specific application - the clockworks that rotate telescopes (relative to the surface of Earth) so that they keep looking at a star while the Earth rotates (relative to stars)?