Pretenders may come and go, but as the Isle of Man watchmaker says, “There’s nothing that can beat a really good mechanical watch.”įollow BBC Future on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn.One of the key messages from the Covid-19 pandemic has been to “support local business”. And it’s hard to argue with someone who has spent so many hours and invested so much of himself in these devices. Perhaps the ubiquity of electronics in our era has persuaded people to look again at the intricate and the mechanical – the cogs and dials of a carefully assembled watch. “I think it’s on the up,” he says cheerfully. The same perfection.Īlthough many challenges still lie ahead in the US, Britain and elsewhere, Smith is positive about the future of watchmaking. He shares Smith’s hope, then, that others around him will strive for the same degree of quality. “Really, the goal is to try and rebuild the American watchmaking industry,” he explains.

Ultimately, Weiss hopes that he will inspire others to follow in his footsteps. While Weiss works to a high standard, he targets consumers rather than wealthy collectors – a Weiss watch starts at $950. “The amount of focus that goes into each component is unreal,” he says. Another example he points to is the care taken over polishing so that oils will not seep away from their parts during years of wear and tear. Weiss, like his colleagues in the industry, is obsessed with the details of watchmaking and describes processes such as heat-treating the metal on screws to turn them, in one case, a magical shade of light blue. “It might sound a bit nutty, but, you know, it’s something that you can understand and really look at and study,” he explains. For Smith, a watch is mechanical, it has a soul, he says, and can be seen as a friend or companion. What does Smith think of the Apple Watch? “Not a great deal really,” he quips. Some, it had transpired, were selling Swiss-made movements in their watches while claiming them as wholly British designs.

He argued they were misleading customers as to the origins of their watches’ components. Ours is the purest of mechanical arts,” he wrote last year in an open letter online criticising the shortcuts of other British watchmakers. It’s clear Smith has an uncompromising view about quality, and the importance of his craft. At one point, things were so dire that he even had to sell the special watch he made all those years ago to impress George Daniels. Smith says that there were times in the early days of his business when he was “on the breadline”. Imagine, says Smith, asking your car’s engine to be as reliable. Watch owners expect their watches to work flawlessly without servicing or interfering with them for many years. It’s a complicated business, though, because of the small size and the aforementioned tolerances involved. Ultimately these gears turn a final set of cogs which unwind and move the minute and hour hands.

Energy stored in a coiled spring is gradually released by a mechanism called an “escapement”, essentially a series of gears. You have to just sit down and really concentrate,” says Smith.Īs he explains, a watch is a relatively simple concept as a mechanical device. You’ve got to think about picking up the screwdriver to un-do a screw, you don’t want to slip because if you slip you could spend a couple of days correcting the fault.”ĭuring this process, the watchmaker can enter a near trance-like state, he admits. “Suddenly every single time you pick up the watch you’ve got to protect it with your fingers. Although Daniels passed away in 2011, Smith now produces his own line of luxury watches, still on the Isle of Man. That was how it all really began in earnest for Smith, who shortly afterwards became Daniels’ apprentice. “Congratulations,” he said, with a smile, “you’re a watchmaker.” To every question, Smith’s reply came back, “I did.” There were only a few of these questions. Daniels asked Smith to confirm who had made various bits of the watch. He waited anxiously as Daniels turned the device over gently in his hands, inspecting every surface and every detail with an authoritative eye. Something he’d been working on for five and a half years. He’d flown over from his home in the north of England to show something to the great craftsman.

Here they were in Daniels’ own workshop, on the Isle of Man. Across the table from him sat George Daniels, the best watchmaker in the world.

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