Ébauche

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Ébauche (French: meaning blank or outline or "sketch") is a term used in art to denote the first preliminary underpainting or quick sketch in oils for an oil painting. One early criticism of Impressionist painting was that its practitioners sought to elevate the status of the ébauche to the level of finished painting. Horology, clockmaking and watchmaking appropriated the term ébauche to refer to an incomplete or unassembled watch movement and its associated components. The French term is regularly used by English-speaking artists and art historians, as well as horologists and hobbyists.

History

Until about 1850, the watchmaker's ébauche consisted of two plates with pillars and bars, the barrel, fusée, index, pawl and ratchet-wheel, along with a few assembling screws. These parts were all roughly filed and milled. The steel and brass were manufactured in a special workshop. The ébauche was finished by watchmakers in a finishing shop.

During the Industrial Revolution, new components were introduced by the Waltham Watch Company and the development of the American System of Watch Manufacturing, establishing the base of modern watch manufacture.

Assortiment

The assortiment (literally "assortment" in English) are the parts of a watch other than the ébauche, in particular the regulating organs and include the balance, hairspring or spiral, escape wheel, anchor lever and pallet stones or jewels. The modern ébauche is a jeweled watch movement, without its regulating organs, mainspring, dial, or hands.

Historic producers of ébauches

Historic producers of ébauche movements have included companies such as, A. Schild, Peseux, Fabrique d'Horlogerie de Fontainemelon (FHF), Landeron, Valjoux, Venus, France Ébauches and Lemania. Many of these producers have gone out of businesses over the past few decades, succumbing to the Quartz Revolution. Most were unable to compete with the inexpensive electronic movements produced by Asian manufacturers, which flooded the market during the 1960s and 1970s.

Those ébauche producers that remain today are almost all owned by ETA, which is a subsidiary of the Swatch Group.

Related concepts

Term	Explanation
Chablon	French term for a watch movement (not including the dial and hands), of which all or part of the components are not assembled.
Ébauche	French term (but commonly used in English-speaking countries) for a movement blank, i.e. an incomplete watch movement which is sold as a set of loose parts, comprising the main plate, the bridges, the train, the winding and setting mechanism and the regulator. The timing system, the escapement and the mainspring, however, are not parts of the "ébauche"
Établissage	French term for the method of manufacturing watches and/or movements by assembling their various components. It generally includes the following operations: receipt, inspection and stocking of the "ébauche", the regulating elements and the other parts of the movement and of the make-up; assembling; springing and timing; fitting the dial and hands; casing; final inspection before packing and dispatching.
Établisseur	French term for a watch factory which is engaged only in assembling watches, without itself producing the components, which it buys from specialist suppliers.
Factory, works	In the Swiss watch industry, the term manufacture is used of a factory in which watches are manufactured almost completely, as distinct from an "atelier de terminage", which is concerned only with assembling, timing, fitting the hands and casing.
Manufacture d'horlogerie	French term for a watch factory which itself produces the components (particularly the "ébauche") needed for the manufacture of its products (watches, alarm and desk clocks, etc).
Terminage	French term denoting the process of assembling watch parts for the account of a producer.
Termineur	French term for an independent watchmaker (or workshop) engaged in assembling watches, either wholly or in part, for the account of an "établisseur" or a "manufacture", who supply the necessary loose parts.

External links

• ETA
• Swatch Group