I spent the better part of 20 years working as a photographer, news, advertising, documentary and fine art. Then covid showed up, the work disappeared and I ended up with more spare time than seemed healthy. My friends started baking sourdough. And I bought an old Omega wristwatch on ebay which was listed as not working and after five minutes inside the case, realized that I had no idea how to repair a watch. At the suggestion of several watchmakers I set the Omega aside (poor thing) and bought a bunch of lesser movements for $10 a pop and over the next year became adept at overhauling and breathing new life into them.

Ultimately I was looking for a nice watch I could wear every day and even though I found a few vintage types which were nice, nothing was quite perfect. So I decided I may as well make my own. How hard could it be?

I set out to make a watch, case, dial and hands on equipment in a local maker space machine shop and design the watch around those limitations. But after six months of struggled it became clear that to make excellent small parts one needs to use excellent machinery. So I decided I might as well make my own machines. How hard could it be?

A year and half later I’d managed to design, build and program two CNC vertical milling machines, one to manufacture the cases, crowns and pushers. The second one to machine dials, hands and other tiny bits. Both were built using industrial surplus parts, steel found at scrap yards and excessive amounts of cussin’ and sweat. And, somewhat surprisingly, both turned out to be highly capable tools with the capability to make precise parts.

Now that I had the machines it only made sense to make more than one watch. And see if anyone out there wanted to buy them. I started a blog to document the process.

I released the first edition of nine watches in 2022, the Prototype One.

And people bought them.

Then an astronaut called and asked about making a mission specific, small dimensioned lightweight titanium watch. And I thought to myself, sure, how hard could it be?

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I also offer my services as a designer and precision machinist to watchmakers and others looking for one off or short run parts.

Drop me an email.