The man wanted a watch. He ended up building an entire watch company.
During the pandemic, Giles Clement decided that fixing old watches wasn’t enough. So he went down into his Brooklyn basement and started building them from scratch—using machines he also built from scratch.
Thanks to Jason Kotke for moving this one up in my queue—he’s tipped us off to a ton of gems over the years.
You Can’t Make This Sh*t Up
- Clement named his second watch model “The 255” after the number of points his credit score dropped when he sunk all his money into building it.
- One CNC machine’s spindle housing is made from a discarded forklift wheel. The frame? From a chunk of abandoned railway track steel he found in Brooklyn.
- One of his watches is literally going to space.
Watch “Building a Watch From Scratch in a Brooklyn Basement”
You can watch “Building a Watch From Scratch in a Brooklyn Basement” for free on YouTube.
Ratings:
- My Rating: 90/100
- IMDB Rating: N/A (short doc)
- Rotten Tomatoes Ratings: N/A
Director’s Note: Taylor Scott Mason directed this short, capturing Giles Clement’s process in 12 minutes and 45 seconds. Mason lets Clement’s workshop, machines, and personality tell the story with little interference.
Release Date: 2023 (YouTube release)
My Review of “Building a Watch From Scratch in a Brooklyn Basement”
The Setup
Giles Clement is a photographer-turned-watchmaker. At first, he bought old watches to fix during COVID. Then he decided to make his own. But instead of buying machines, he built two CNC mills from scrap steel, surplus parts, and even an old forklift wheel. The result? He now makes nearly every visible part of his watches—cases, crowns, hands, dials—by hand, in Brooklyn.
More Highlights from the Doc
- Aside from the Swiss movement inside, Clement fabricates everything else in-house—including designing the custom typeface for the numerals.
- He built a pad-printing machine for dials, a lume injector for hands, and even a polishing lathe—none of which he could afford to buy.
- His first workshop was so cramped he couldn’t stand upright without hitting pipes. He now works in a waterfront Brooklyn space better suited for precision machining.
- Originally, he just wanted to make one watch for himself. Today, he runs a small business with watches starting at $2,250.
Lesser-Known Details from the Doc
- Clement once built a giant 16×20 camera out of Home Depot wood and trash bags for bellows, which he used to shoot Chris Kristofferson at a music festival.
- He admits many of his choices were “unhealthy financial decisions,” but he sees them as necessary steps in learning his craft.
- He taught himself CAD and Linux just to program his homemade CNC machines—despite last using CAD in 1998.
Wrap Up:
This doc is about watchmaking and one man’s fun obsession. Clement shows what happens when curiosity and stubbornness collide in a Brooklyn basement.
Thanks for reading!
Heather Fenty, Guest Writer, Daily Doc