NEW YORK (FORTUNE Small Business Magazine) - David Walter, a clockmaker who measures time in half-seconds, works in a way that has been out of date for decades. While most clocks are mass-produced overseas, Walter, 56, assembles his by hand in Santa Barbara.

A native of Australia, he began restoring antique watches 40 years ago and later fixed timepieces for the royal family in England.

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Today he crafts each screw, spring, and gear in his creations. He designs the casings and dials with pen and paper (not computer) and mails the plans to be fabricated by artisans in Europe and Australia.

"When I first saw the clocks, I was stunned," says Bill Taylor, 58, a magician and co-founder of Illusion Arts, a Van Nuys, Calif., visual-effects company that has worked on 150 feature films, from Bruce Almighty to The Fast and the Furious. Taylor owns three David Walter clocks and has a fourth being built.

The clocks take up to six months to complete and range from $25,000 to $140,000. It's a hefty pricetag, but Walter has already sold more than 140 of them--proving that when it comes to manufacturing, craftsmanship will always be timeless.

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