Time on His Terms

There’s no neatly labelled school certificate hanging in Reuben Schoots’ workshop. No glossy Swiss diploma, no apprenticeship papers signed by the great and good of Glashütte. What there is, however, is a self-built CNC mill, a lathe older than the Titanic, and a quiet, unshakable confidence. Schoots doesn’t need permission to make watches. He’s simply decided that this is what he’s going to do, and he’s going to do it properly.

Tucked away in a suburban garage in Wanniassa, a few miles from Canberra’s centre, Australia’s most intriguing watchmaker isn’t surrounded by any of the usual signs of luxury. There’s no gleaming atelier or marble showroom. What you’ll find instead are raw materials, modified tools, and a single, determined man reimagining how time should be measured – with purpose, persistence, and more than a little poetry.

The illness that changed everything

Like many stories worth telling, this one doesn’t begin with success. In his early twenties, Schoots was hit with illness. A combination of tropical viruses and a parasite left him almost entirely incapacitated, bedridden and exhausted for the better part of two years. “Chronic fatigue” sounds gentle until you live it. The world slows down, narrows. And in that stillness, something quietly began to stir.

A friend brought him a book. Watchmaking by George Daniels. It wasn’t a token gesture – it was a lightning bolt. Daniels, the now-legendary British watchmaker who famously built every component of his timepieces by hand, had sketched out a blueprint not just for horology, but for a life driven by craft, integrity, and solitude.

Schoots, lying in a bed in Australia, saw a future take shape. If Daniels could build a watch by hand on the Isle of Man, perhaps there was a way to do the same in Wanniassa.

Starting from zero

There’s something both romantic and brutal about starting with nothing. No training, no mentor, no easy path. But that’s exactly where Schoots began. Watchmaking, as Daniels said, “is not a job for the fainthearted,” and Schoots had no illusions. The first step? Build a pocket watch entirely by hand. No kits, no shortcuts. Just brass, steel, fire, and patience.

He began teaching himself machining and metalwork using a 110-year-old Wolf Jahn lathe, modified tools, and a borrowed knowledge base stitched together from books, YouTube videos, and long-forgotten forum posts. He met a former CSIRO engineer who helped him hand-build a CNC machine capable of precision tolerances under five microns, far tighter than your average milling machine. There’s stubbornness, and then there’s this.

The result, after years of solitary work, was a pocket watch with a handmade tourbillon, finished to an extraordinary standard. He made everything himself: bridges, screws, springs, plates, hands. It wasn’t a commercial piece, not for sale or show. It was proof of concept. If he could build this, he could build anything.

Series One – the official debut

In 2023, Schoots released his first official wristwatch: Series One. Six pieces. Each one built by hand, each dial flaked and textured using a tool of his own invention. It was the start of something meaningful – where the techniques and philosophies behind the tourbillon pocket watch now served a wearable, functional object.

Series One wasn’t interested in slick marketing or borrowed aesthetics. These were watches that wore their sincerity on their sleeve. No ostentation. Just purity of purpose.

Each timepiece took approximately three months to complete, though that hardly captures the reality. Dials composed of four separate layers. Screws turned from solid stock. Brushed plates, hand-finished. In an industry full of factory-scaled “independents,” Schoots’ approach felt almost shocking in its purity.

Buyers took notice. All six Series One watches sold almost immediately, and the secondary market didn’t take long to catch up. One piece hit Loupe This and fetched US $26,100 – nearly double the original asking price. For a debutante working out of a garage in Canberra, this was unheard of. But then again, Schoots isn’t exactly typical.

What makes him different

It’s tempting to place Reuben Schoots alongside other great independent names, like Roger W. Smith, Kari Voutilainen, Philippe Dufour, but that doesn’t quite land. There’s a distinct Australianness to his work: not just in geography, but in spirit. He’s not building watches to court Geneva. He’s building them because the process matters.

Where most young watchmakers might start by sourcing ébauches and assembling parts, Schoots works the other way. He builds the base. He builds the parts. Then he assembles them.

Most of his machines are either vintage, modified, or built from scratch. The CNC mill he constructed at home – out of curiosity, necessity, and budget constraint – can go toe-to-toe with commercial alternatives that cost hundreds of thousands. It’s a technical achievement in itself, but more than that, it symbolises how he works. If he needs a tool, he’ll make the tool. If the tool needs a part, he’ll fabricate that too.

There’s an echo of Daniels in this, yes. But there’s also a rugged, hands-on inventiveness that feels closer to the early days of Australian engineering; DIY, homegrown, and quietly extraordinary.

Series Two: the evolution

Set to launch in 2025, Series Two pushes Schoots further. Only seven pieces will be made, each priced at AU $57,500 (around £30,000 before tax). This isn’t just inflation. It’s evolution.

For Series Two, Schoots is building everything, even the case, in-house. The design is slightly refined: 41.5 mm wide, 10 mm thick, housed in brushed 316L stainless steel with box sapphire crystals. Still time-only, still hand-wound, but now with even more control over the geometry, materiality, and fit.

The movement retains many of the same values as Series One, but everything is cleaner. Tolerances are tighter. Finishing is finer. And every tiny component – the pinions, screws, bridges, escapement – is shaped and finished by the man himself.

There are no assembly lines. No interns. Just Reuben, a bench, and the hum of machinery. At a time when “handmade” has become little more than a marketing checkbox, it’s refreshing to find someone who still means it.

The lifestyle of a one-man manufacture

To say that Schoots lives a quiet life is like saying Roger Federer had a decent serve. He works alone, in a modest space, surrounded by his machines. His days are spent turning, grinding, shaping, adjusting. There’s a rhythm to it. A kind of meditative consistency.

When he’s not making watches, he’s making the tools to make watches. When he’s not doing that, he’s filming slow, deliberate Instagram videos of hand-polishing, or sharing short-form insights on YouTube, speaking calmly and candidly into the camera.

The cult of the watchmaker isn’t something Schoots cultivates. He’s not trying to be a “character.” If anything, his brand presence is disarmingly normal. There’s no trace of ego, no theatrics. Just process. Passion. Purpose.

Australian watchmaking, finally taken seriously

It’s fair to say Australia isn’t exactly known for its horological history. Sure, we’ve seen the odd designer-led microbrand, but nothing like this. Nothing at this level of craftsmanship.

Schoots isn’t just a one-off curiosity. He might be Australia’s best shot at establishing a truly artisanal watchmaking culture. One that doesn’t copy Swiss styles or lean too hard on international suppliers. One that grows from the ground up.

His work may be solitary, but its implications aren’t. He’s part of a new, slow-burning movement that’s reminding the world that mechanical artistry isn’t the preserve of Europe. It can come from Canberra, from Tokyo, from Mexico City. Anywhere with hands, discipline, and imagination.

Why it matters

Luxury, at its best, tells a story. And Reuben Schoots’ story is one worth telling. It’s about resilience: a young man flattened by illness who decided to build something instead of breaking. It’s about independence: making not just watches, but the machines that make the watches. And above all, it’s about care: about what it means to spend your life quietly, insistently perfecting a thing most people take for granted.

We often talk about slow food, slow fashion, slow living. What Schoots gives us is slow time. Not sluggish or nostalgic – just deeply considered. The kind of time that takes three months to make and a lifetime to appreciate. So if you ever find yourself lucky enough to strap on a Schoots, know this – you’re not just wearing a watch. You’re wearing a pocket of defiance. A refusal to rush. A belief that the old ways aren’t just relevant, but necessary. In a world obsessed with scale and speed, Reuben Schoots is proof that sometimes the smallest, slowest workshop makes the loudest tick.

Further information: https://www.reubenschoots.com/

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