Hey I’m Giles,

I spent the better part 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 somewhat 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.

Around this point it dawned on me that my alternative to sour dough bread making hobby, making a watch for myself, had cost me enough to have bought several top shelf Swiss watches, a vintage Porsche and a fully kitted out jet ski.

Which led to the decision to make more than one watch. And see if anyone out there wanted to buy a watch from a guy with too much time on his hands and a penchant for financial self immolation. 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.

Now I’m making more watches. Maybe you’ll buy one.

If not I’ve always wanted to learn how to bake bread.