I had the very same problems with clocks in the begining, one reason why I bought Bobs online course. I would spend hours trying to find out what some of the substances used in horology were. Crocus paper is a prime example, try and find that! As bob said in his video, read as many books as you can, I cant say there is one specific book I would recomend because every book has a certain amount of content which helps to make things clearer. What a great idea for our own horological dictionary, If every member put in a description of an item they had to investigate once per day we would soon have something very useful, not sure how bob would go about making it easily searchable though?
example;
Crocus Paper – A very fine abbrasive paper used for the final fine polish of metal objects, currently very hard to find a supplier and there must be some form of modern alternative. Used by calligraphers for cleaning pen knibs – (well, used to be used by them until it had stopped being made).
Thats funny, just checked on google and now info is coming up, Meadows and Passmore do an alternative and the nearest thing is grade 4/0 emery paper! The last BHI meeting I went to had one of the guys giving a talk, going on about using it as if it was an everyday thing. Still having trouble finding info on left-handed hammers, Sky hooks and a long weight. 