Comment by eggy

That is an absolutely amazing book - how to design and make the highest quality watches from scratch. At the time, all watch fabrication was by division of labor, no one made an entire watch from scratch.

Daniels also wrote a riveting autobiography. He rose from the most abject poverty to world eminence, largely because of the British guild system.

He also collected, restored, and raced old cars. He used to drive his Blower Bentley to his gentlemen's club (!) in London[0]. All this is described in his autobiography.

He needed to do business in Switzerland, so he simply drove his restored Rolls-Royce across the Continent.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bentley_Blower_No.1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Daniels_(watchmaker)

Linked at the very end of the long, long page (which, incidentally, is long).

I've heard of that book before, it sounds really interesting too! Creating your own mechanism sounds extremely complex, is that what you're doing?

I was about to post the same book. Pretty much a must have if you get into watchmaking.