Inside a Watchmaking Workshop with German Watchmaker Noan-Antonio Tufina. 

The first thing you notice isn’t the ticking. It’s the silence. At 8:45 a.m., Munich’s streets are bustling, but inside the Tufina workshop, Noah-Antonio is already hunched over his bench, a magnifying loupe pressed against his eye. “My great-grandfather once told my father,” Noah says without looking up, “that a watchmaker who rushes is just a man breaking expensive things.” He pauses, tweezers suspended over a hairspring thinner than spider silk.

The Weight of Generations

Born in Germany, Noah-Antonio Tufina bears a name with a 200-year history. Not metaphorically—literally. The Tufina family can trace its traditional watchmaking heritage back to 1822, when their eighth great-grandfather built the mechanism for the Tirana Clock Tower. Noah’s hands move with inherited muscle memory, but his story starts long before Munich. It begins in Tirana’s streets, where his ancestor first learned to count seconds by the rhythm of his heartbeat. Wars and politics scattered the family across Europe. Opportunity brought them to Germany. Stubbornness kept them making watches. Noah-Antonio Tufina is recognized as one of the current junior representatives of the family’s traditional watchmaking. His father, Enis Tufina, licensed the two German brands Theorema and Pionier in 2004. While neither enjoys a large public profile, both play a role in preserving the family’s legacy. As a junior watchmaker, Noah-Antonio is involved in both the technical and creative aspects of developing timepieces, representing the next generation of this long-standing tradition. His role often bridges the classic principles of traditional horology with modern design and innovation. Junior watchmakers like Noah typically work under the mentorship of senior or master watchmakers, learning and applying intricate techniques such as movement assembly, fine adjustment, casing, and precision testing for durability. Guided by his many cousins, who carry the title of master watchmakers, Noah-Antonio also contributes to refining some of Tufina’s more contemporary pieces, with a particular focus on maintaining the balance between functional mechanical integrity and bold aesthetic appeal.

A Day in the Workshop: The Journey of a Junior Watchmaker

Morning Precision – Movement Assembly and Prepping Noah-Antonio Tufina starts his day at the bench, where discipline begins with cleanliness and calibration. The workspace is pristine—temperature and humidity-controlled, ensuring no external factors compromise the precision of his work. His first task: movement assembly. As a junior watchmaker, Noah focuses on the meticulous process of assembling mechanical calibers, often starting with the mainplate. He checks for evenness and verifies the integrity of jewel settings before carefully mounting the gear train, ensuring the center wheel, third wheel, fourth wheel, and escape wheel are perfectly aligned. Using tweezers and a loupe, he tests for end shake and side shake, ensuring minimal friction but smooth rotation. At this stage, Noah often works on:

• Barrel assembly and mainspring fitting, checking the power reserve.
• Installing the balance staff and hairspring, ensuring the oscillation rate (often 21,600 or 28,800 vph in Tufina watches) is achieved.
• Applying synthetic lubricants at precise points using automatic oilers—too much or too little oil can disrupt amplitude and long-term accuracy.

Midday Focus – Regulation and Adjustment (Réglage)

By mid-morning, Noah moves into fine regulation, a complex and vital process. Using a timing machine, he monitors the rate, amplitude, and beat error across multiple positions: dial-up, dial-down, crown-up, and crown-down. Junior watchmakers like Noah learn how to manipulate the regulator index and, where necessary, adjust the poising of the balance wheel to ensure isochronism. During regulation:

• He aims for an average rate deviation within +/- 10 seconds per day, although Tufina timepieces often outperform this.
• Noah must pay attention to the escapement action, ensuring the pallet stones are correctly adjusted for optimal lock and drop, minimizing recoil.

Afternoon Skill – Casing and Final Assembly

Once the movement is timed and regulated, Noah shifts to casing up the watch. He ensures:

• The dial feet are securely fixed, often aligning applied indexes with meticulous care.
• Hand setting is precise, utilizing hand-setting tools to prevent damage to the cannon pinion or interference.
• Alignment is crucial, especially for multi-function watches like dual-time or open-heart models, which are typical in the Tufina Theorema line.

Noah then assembles the caseback, often featuring a sapphire crystal or mineral glass, ensuring an airtight seal, which is sometimes reinforced with gaskets for enhanced water resistance (though many of Tufina’s pieces are more focused on urban style than diving depths).

Late Afternoon – Quality Control and Testing

The last part of Noah’s day is spent on quality control:

• The watch undergoes a 3-day test run on a rotor winding machine, mimicking natural wrist movement to assess power reserve and winding efficiency.
• He performs a visual inspection under magnification for dust or imperfections.
• Water-resistance testing is done through vacuum and pressure tests (often up to 5 ATM in Tufina’s urban-styled models).

Ongoing Learning and Mastery

As a junior watchmaker, Noah-Antonio is not only assembling; he’s learning. His afternoons often include:

• Reviewing blueprints and exploded-view diagrams of upcoming calibers.
• Experimenting under supervision with tourbillon cages or complication modules for future releases.

In Conclusion:

Noah-Antonio Tufina’s daily responsibilities reflect the precision and patience required in traditional watchmaking. As the next generation in a multi-generation dynasty such as Tufina, his role bridges the legacy of German mechanical precision with modern interpretations of design and function. From regulating a balance wheel to understanding torque distribution in the gear train, Noah’s work continues the Tufina family’s dedication to reliable, accessible mechanical timekeeping. Photo by Hannes Köttner; Unsplash