Tolerances: What Racing Shares with the Bench
The master setter works to tolerances of two-hundredths of a millimetre. At this scale, ambient temperature matters—metal expands, contracts, behaves differently in morning cold than afternoon warmth. The craftsman accounts for variables invisible to observation. Across disciplines, in the workshops where racing components are finished, identical standards apply. A bearing surface, a valve seat, a piston ring: these too permit no approximation.
Both pursuits share an understanding that excellence exists at the margin. The difference between adequate and extraordinary cannot be seen by untrained eyes, yet it determines everything. A stone set with imperceptible gaps will shift over years; a component machined to looser standards will fail under stress. The tolerance is not merely technical specification but philosophy—an insistence that the invisible matters as much as the apparent.
There is another parallel worth noting. Both the jeweller's workshop and the racing factory attract those for whom "good enough" holds no meaning. The personality drawn to such work finds satisfaction not in completion but in the approach to perfection—knowing it cannot be reached, pursuing it regardless. This shared temperament, more than any surface similarity, connects two worlds that rarely acknowledge their kinship.