During her tour of the TeNo premises Biggi has not only photographed the workshops but also some of the offices and so today I can also introduce our mother to you. She is practically the “keeper of my gate“ and whoever wants to see me, has to get past her first. :-) In reality, covering my back is of course only a sideline and hobby. In her main job she takes care of our jeweler customers in southern Germany.

Today I’m giving you another peek into the inner workings of TeNo. In the photo you can see Jennifer Hunn our youngest apprentice. As is to be expected, throughout her apprenticeship as a plant assistant, Jenny can sometimes be found here, sometimes there. As she is, of course, the link between the offices and production.
In this photo you can see her in our shipping area – this is where numerous packages and parcels are packed, it’s practically the last room to see our jewelry before it leaves Pforzheim. :-) On the big roller that you can see in front of Jenni is “bubble wrap“ – everyone probably knows it, this air bubble film with the air bubbles that everybody loves popping. ;-) We use this bubble wrap to line and pad out parcels or to wrap around our packages so that your watches, jewelry and accessories arrive safely at our jewelry partners. A roll this size has 100 metres of bubble wrap and, on average, we use up about six to eight rolls a month.

It’s about time now that I let you into our company to have a look around. So, when you come in and immediately turn to the left twice and once to the right, you’ll find yourself standing in the middle of the workshop and practically right in front of Ruth. Ruth Gladen is our goldsmith. Now you might be thinking – what is a goldsmith doing in a company that makes stainless steel jewelry?

It’s true that many of the skills that Ruth learnt to become a goldsmith, for example, soldering and forging – are not exactly the kind of work we carry out at TeNo. That’s because stainless steel demands a different production method to that of classical gold and silver jewelry. In our workshops, nothing is cast or soldered, instead it’s all turned and milled from the solid material.

Having said this, we still need goldsmiths. Because we’re working with gold, too. There are quite a few of our pieces that are made of yellow or pink gold. It’s typical of TeNo to combine and match stainless steel with other high-quality materials.

Moreover, to neaten up the edges of stainless steel you need to have a lot of dexterity and very skillful fingers. As a qualified goldsmith Ruth demonstrates both of these, not only in this photo, where she’s actually working on YuKoN Elements, but day in and day out without fail.