Mainspring and fusee
Muelle real y caracol compensador (fusee)
- Date
- c. 1430-1450 · confidence medium
- Place
- Burgundy / southern Germany
- Credited to
- Anonymous; clock of Philip the Good of Burgundy (c. 1430); the fusee documented in 1450
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
What it is
A coiled steel ribbon that stores energy to drive a clock without weights, together with the spiral cone (the fusee) that equalises the force as it unwinds. It made portable and table clocks possible.
The fusee appears in a drawing in a manuscript of 1450 and was wrongly attributed to Jacob Zech (1525).
What it led to
- Portable and table clocks
- The manufacture of high-quality spring steel
- The application of springs to firearms (the wheellock) and automata
Built on
- Mechanical weight-driven clockc. 1283
- Tempered steel
Made possible
- Wheellockc. 1500-1510
- Pocket watchc. 1510
- Wheel-cutting enginec. 1670-1700
- Mechanical automata