In the recent discussion about the hostory of aluminium parts and their general availability linked to their relaiblity, Jan Heine posed a question about when the first aluminium frames were brought into use, and at the same time suggested that there didn't seem to be many around in the 1920s. In France, Pechiney, France's largest supplier of aluminium in all its forms to industry as a whole, including the food industry in which Pechiney is a market leader , have carried quite a lot of historical research into the history of the aluminium frame. Although in 1898 the Humber Cycle Company is credited with producing the first cycle frame with both frame and fork and handlebars in aluminium, Pechiney suggest that the cycle industry had to wait until 1933 for a certain Monsieur Py, a Frenchman, to produce the first aluminium frame. This initiative was then followed in 1935 by M. Caminade, with his bolted together Caminargent, with M Barra producing his first frame, a gas-welded construction in October 1937. In later years , notably the late 40s a number of companies such as Gnome et Rhone, Mercier etc produced frames with the tubes secured by mechanical joints, and this type of construction was favoured by several other companies in the 50s through to the 70s, companies such as Duravia, CMP, Austral, AVIAC etc until Bador and CLB-Angenieux, combined with Pechiney to produce the Duralinox epoxy-bonded frames.In the 40s and 50s a few manufacturers experimented with aluminium frames built on the monocoque principal from sheet material - making the end results look quite art deco in appearance. In and amongst these producers and the period in general a number of small companies , such as Marsotti and Wolhauser had also brought out bonded frames.. Probably the lack of popularity of the aluminium frame for so many years was due to the fact that the welded ones were not entirely reliable, and the mechanically joined ones not attractive. In the 70s Andre Sabliere started to produce some excellent products, using argon-arc welding, but his frames too tended to suffer from breakages, although these might have been due to the very light nature of the frames rather than to the welds themselves. As long ago as the late 60s Raleigh had been experimenting with bonding frames with both aluminium alloy and composite tubes, but had discontinued their experiments as not being feasible for a variety of reasons.
I am currently trying to compile a comprehensive file on aluminium and composite frames, so if anyone out there has photos or articles that they can spare and think would be helpful, I would be very grateful
Norris Lockley ..Settle UK
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