Canberra man builds a mechanical watch by hand, after a deadly illness forced him to reinvent his life - ABC News

Reuben Schoots sits barely visible behind a wall of antique clocks — heavy longcase pendulum pieces, ornate French marble clocks adorned with baroque sculptures and naked timepieces without cases or dials, their movements exposed.

None of the clocks are ticking.

The 27-year-old works in silence because he is working by hand, at a scale of microns, on the pieces of a mechanical watch he began two-and-a-half years ago.

When he made its first part, he knew almost nothing about horology, the study of timekeeping.

It was an arcane craft he had just begun to delve into, after becoming seriously ill.

Once an athletic man working as a barista and studying nutrition at university, Reuben became sick from an unknown illness he contracted during an eight-month backpacking journey through Latin America.

Reuben caught several illnesses backpacking through Latin America as a 22-year-old.(Supplied: Reuben Schoots)

"I went to the doctor and they found I had glandular fever, but the glandular fever was actually the result of my immune system being so suppressed as I had contracted three tropical viruses, as well as a parasite I had in my gut," Reuben said.

"I became really unwell, I lost 16 kilos, I couldn't leave the bed, I had this huge mental depression as well as this physical depression."

Rarely able to leave his bed or his home, Reuben lost his job, his sporting ability, and ultimately quit his studies.

He also became addicted to the opiates he was prescribed to treat his chronic pain.

"It was the death of myself as I knew myself. I had this idea of myself, and that was gone. I couldn't use my brain anymore like I used to, I could use my body like I used to," he said.

Then something unusual on the wrist of a friend caught Reuben's eye.

"It was a mechanical watch, and you could see the movement through the back of the watch … and I remember seeing that movement and just thinking 'wow, who makes this? How does this work? There's hundreds of components all ticking away, working together to tell you the time'."

"That was when I had the realisation that I wanted to begin watchmaking … I thought, that's something I could do, it's not massive movements of the body, I can take my time, I can do it from home.

"I really wanted to be doing something with my hands, making, but I didn't realise that's what I wanted to do until I actually became sick and everything that I was doing or had was stripped away."

Reuben was inspired by the fine movements of a mechanical timepiece.(ABC News: Jake Evans)

Rediscovering a relic of time

But you cannot just start making a watch with 200-year-old techniques on the fly.

There are no online tutorials or group classes for making a mechanical watch from scratch — even modern handmade watches are usually built by a team of up to 32 craftsmen, each with a specialisation in a particular part honed over a lifetime.

And the old books that could teach Reuben were intentionally obtuse.

His guide, a late master named George Daniels — famed for making complete watches by hand — would sometimes write a single instruction (like "make a flywheel") for a part that required more than 100 steps and three months of work to make.

Reuben had to make many of the tools to craft the watch himself, because they do not exist in Australia.(ABC News: Jake Evans)

The dexterity and focus required also means Reuben must test his body daily, pushing himself to his limits inside a sauna before swimming laps in an Olympic pool to condition himself.

Following the methods employed by Daniels, he is dedicated to initiating himself into an intimate fraternity.

"I know of two people that have completed a George Daniels watch outside of Daniels himself," Reuben said.

"You can count on your fingers — at most, your fingers and toes — the amount of people who have made 100 per cent of a mechanical watch by hand over the last century."

After 2,500 hours of work, Reuben has just two pieces left to make before his watch will finally tick.

Reuben's watch is made of hundreds of parts, many of which took months to make.(Instagram: reubenschoots)

"It's a strange thing for me to look at, for me to hold and to touch — of course it's very precious," he said.

"It embodies an incredible amount of, basically, perseverance. There's a lot of frustration, there's a lot of pain, there's a lot of mistakes. Some components I've made over 20 times before one works.

"You lose them, you drop them, they fly across the room."

Reuben wants to make a mark for Australia in the history of handmade watchmaking.

And there are collectors out there ready to buy a watch like his — Daniels' greatest watch sold at auction in 2019 for more than $6 million.

Though Reuben has learned more than just to make a watch in his thousands of hours of toil.

Reuben says the resilience he has developed watchmaking helps him outside the workshop, too.(ABC News: Jake Evans)

He has also built a tool to overcome the isolation, illness and loneliness he was plunged into — something he says many others could benefit from as they face the ongoing pandemic.

"I think that a lot of people are feeling very negative and don't like this isolation, or this time to yourself. Change hurts," he said.

"But they undervalue, or underestimate the value of, down time and I think people are scared to be with themselves. Evolution comes out of down time."

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiY2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy8yMDIxLTAxLTAxL2hvcm9sb2d5LXJldWJlbi1zY2hvb3RzLWhhbmRtYWtpbmctbWVjaGFuaWNhbC13YXRjaC8xMjk5MjcxONIBJ2h0dHBzOi8vYW1wLmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvYXJ0aWNsZS8xMjk5MjcxOA?oc=5

2020-12-31 19:57:00Z
CAIiEN2E4khGNn9V4gUqzDnpleQqFggEKg4IACoGCAow3vI9MPeaCDDciw4