I made the escape arbor from 1/16" stainless steel, which is very hard and also has a very good surface appearance; and I put a lower pivot on it with a graver in the old Moseley watchmakers lathe. The wheel is mounted on the arbor with a brass collet, which is secured to the stainless steel arbor with Loctite.

The upper pivot won't be made until I plant the gear train. So I used a temporary bracket to hold the upper end of the arbor. It's made of a strip of brass, with a 1/16" hole made in it.

I used the register mark on the paper template glued to the horizontal base plate to orient the temporary bracket. To be sure the arbor is square to the upper balance bridge, I set the arbor in its bearing (before the escape wheel was mounted) and used a small machinists square to test it. The bracket is held to the front main plate with a drop of Super Glue.

The roller is made from 3/64" gauge plate, or oil-hardening tool steel. I first marked a ring on the mother steel sheet, drilled a 3/16" hole in it for its collet, and then sawed it out with a jewelers saw. Then I mounted it on a stub arbor in the chuck of the Taig lathe and trued to size. It's .575" in diameter.

The roller has a notch in it, which will serve as pilot "jewel", where a tooth of the escape wheel will catch it to impulse the balance when the clock is running. On the trailing edge of the notch, there is a little "bump", whose job it is to make it easier for an escape wheel tooth to catch the notch. The "bump" is only about .005" high.

I made the bump by transferring the 3-jaw chuck with the stub arbor from the lathe to the Sherling rotary table on the Taig mill. I used a 1/16" endmill to make a circular cut about .005" deep all around the roller, leaving just a little bit uncut to form the bump. It turns out that the bump is 10 degrees wide, reading the degree marks on the rotary table.

I cut the notch with a diamond escapement file. It's necessary to cut the notch just deep enough so that the tips of escape wheel teeth clear the bottom of the notch when the clock is running.

The roller is polished, hardened and tempered to blue. Its collet has a through hole drilled and tapped for another gnat-like 0-80 set screw which will hold it to the balance arbor wire. The hole for the wire is made .032" for the wire. The roller is riveted to its collet with small blows of a little hammer, then it's returned to the lathe for trimming and final polishing.

Today's links:

Escape arbor pivot
Arbor in bearing
Escape wheel mounted
Temporary escape bracket
Roller in chuck
Bump on roller
Making the bump
Roller
Escape and roller
Roller drawing, GIF
Escapement drawing, GIF