Thanks, much Norris. I used a bit of Simichrome on it. Came out quite nicely. For those who might have wondered, I think Norris recalls its previous condition as he had watched the eBay auction back in 2005 in which I was the only bidder at $200. He was thinking of making an off eBay offer if the frame fetched no bids, and it would have been only a minor detour to pick it up on his next trip to France. Sorry again to have ruined the plan, Norris.
It seems then that Mecadural was a brand of the Duravia company, rather than the other way round as I had imagined. Yet it also seem that Mecadurals branded with the name of their parent company Duravia are somewhat rare. All in all, while this may not be quite as elegant as a Caminargent, I think for $200 compared to very much more for a Caminargent frame it is quite a good value. Quite a nice 50's French aluminum randonneur, and while it might not be a bike that would have been in the Technical Trials, it definitely embodies the technologies the Trials inspired. So I'll assume that Norris' Frankenstein comment was directed at the newer of Hilary's Merciers, which truly does seem much cruder to me than his earlier Mecadural/Mercier.
I won't bore the list with all the issues I had to resolve in building up my Duravia/Mecadural, but it truly is a learning esxperience when one ventures into a build from an era one really hasn't dealt with before. But life is learning, no? Frankly, for quite a while I thought this frame would never get built, but Jan's Golden Age of Handbuilt Bicycles and Eddie Albert's posting of his Caminargents combined to inspire be to get this built.
Regards,
Jerry Moos
Big Spring, Texas, USA
> From: Norris Lockley <nlockley73@googlemail.com>
\r?\n> Subject: [CR] DURAVIA/MECADURAL et al.
\r?\n> To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
\r?\n> Date: Sunday, November 15, 2009, 8:24 PM
\r?\n> The placing up for sale on the List,
\r?\n> by Hilary, of two aluminium frames,
\r?\n> both badged as Merciers, has evidently casued a little
\r?\n> confusion about the
\r?\n> origin of their manufacture. It really was a tremendous
\r?\n> coincidence that
\r?\n> Hilary pulled both these aluminium rabbits out of the same
\r?\n> hat on the same
\r?\n> day..if you will pardon my mangled metaphors. And I am not
\r?\n> very sure that my
\r?\n> attempts to rise to Hilary's implied invitation to clarify
\r?\n> the origin of the
\r?\n> non-Mecadural frame helped the cause. It was almost a case
\r?\n> of if you can't
\r?\n> convince the Listers then confuse them....not at all what I
\r?\n> intended. Jerry
\r?\n> had been left wondering just what brand his exemplary
\r?\n> aluminium bike is.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> After the WWll, as with most wars, there was a washover of
\r?\n> technical
\r?\n> progress ie advances in engineering know-how and materials
\r?\n> technology , that
\r?\n> drifted into everyday life. One such gain forJoe
\r?\n> Citizen and his family was
\r?\n> the greater use of aluminium alloys. The cycle industry was
\r?\n> one of the
\r?\n> industries to profit extensively.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Three companies that had been involved in aerospace,
\r?\n> if that is the correct
\r?\n> word, during the War diversified into the cycle industry,
\r?\n> the most prominent
\r?\n> of which was Gnome et Rhone, the manufacturer of aeroplane
\r?\n> engines.; this
\r?\n> company developed a small range of lightweight frames
\r?\n> incorporating three
\r?\n> main aluminium alloy tubes into steel lugs and a steel rear
\r?\n> triangle.
\r?\n> Another firm involved in the war effort developed an
\r?\n> all-aluminium alloy
\r?\n> frame with curious, apparently crimped together ,tubes and
\r?\n> cast lugs; this
\r?\n> was called the AVIAC. A third firm developed a frame with
\r?\n> cast aluminium
\r?\n> alloy lugs into which were fixed the aluminium tubes - this
\r?\n> frame was called
\r?\n> the Mecadural.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> As far as I have been able to discover the Mecadural was
\r?\n> the brainchild of
\r?\n> the Duravia company that appears to have hailed from just
\r?\n> north of Lyon. I
\r?\n> am still checking the facts on this matter, as it seems
\r?\n> that some of the
\r?\n> castings came from a firm in St Etienne, but the two cities
\r?\n> are quite close.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Very little is known about AVIAC except that it was based
\r?\n> in the
\r?\n> northern suburbs of Paris. Gnome et Rhone became State
\r?\n> owned, is now called
\r?\n> SNECMA, and its products are mainly aircraft engines some
\r?\n> of which are used
\r?\n> in Boeing aircraft. The company has a large research
\r?\n> facility. After WWll
\r?\n> Gnome et Rhone concentrated also on the development of
\r?\n> motor cycles with
\r?\n> pedal cycles as an ancillary activity.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Most of the Mecadural frames that still exist carry either
\r?\n> the Mercier brand
\r?\n> or one of the company's sub-brands such as Francis
\r?\n> Pelissier, Antonin Magne,
\r?\n> Andre Leducq, and Lapebie, although, as in Jerry's case,
\r?\n> some obviously
\r?\n> carry the actual manufacturer's name. I have seen a lot of
\r?\n> Mecadural frames
\r?\n> and bikes but Jerrys' is the only one I know to have
\r?\n> anodised lugs, so maybe
\r?\n> that was a characteristic of the DURAVIA brand. Further
\r?\n> north in France La
\r?\n> Perle used Mecadural frames as did, to a lesser extent,
\r?\n> Helyett.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> All these three brands of aluminium frames, the AVIAC, the
\r?\n> Gnome et Rhone,
\r?\n> and the Mecadural have a comon characteristic in that the
\r?\n> construction of
\r?\n> the frame relied in part on mechanical fixings to secure
\r?\n> the main tubes. All
\r?\n> three frames had two badges on the head-tube. If these are
\r?\n> removed, holes
\r?\n> are revealed..the holes permitting access to the fixing
\r?\n> systems that work
\r?\n> like expansion bolts, holding the tube firm inside the lug.
\r?\n> A similar system
\r?\n> was employed several decades later by TVT and Tange to
\r?\n> provide greater
\r?\n> strength and grip in securing the down and seat tubes to
\r?\n> the bottom brackets
\r?\n> of their carbon frames. I am assuming that the name
\r?\n> Mecadural was adopted to
\r?\n> describe both the frame's material and its manner of
\r?\n> construction.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> AVIAC's frames appeared to use also some form of swaging or
\r?\n> crimping of the
\r?\n> tubes over the lugs..and, never having taken an AVIAC to
\r?\n> pieces I am
\r?\n> uncertain whether these frames had one hole in the head
\r?\n> tube or
\r?\n> two..certainly there were AVIACs with only one hole. AVIACs
\r?\n> also appeared
\r?\n> with brands such as Peugeot, but also bearing the
\r?\n> headbadges of smaller
\r?\n> shops. Perhaps there were the Duralinox 979 of the 40s.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Duravia, possibly due to the success of the Mecadural, went
\r?\n> on to develop
\r?\n> other more modern models such as the MERCIER -branded one
\r?\n> sold by Hilary,
\r?\n> the frame with the large cast lugs with external allen
\r?\n> screw clamping
\r?\n> devices. This could almost be seen as an updated
\r?\n> Caminargent-type structure,
\r?\n> in which no joints or fixings such as the drop-outs are
\r?\n> internal.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> There are certain parts on the Duravia that resemble or are
\r?\n> identical to
\r?\n> certain parts that appeared on another aluminium frame that
\r?\n> appeared in the
\r?\n> early 70s. I have seen several of these but they had no
\r?\n> transfers or
\r?\n> headbadges, possibly due to the industry's migration away
\r?\n> from badges to
\r?\n> transfers on head-tubes. These were made in or near Lyon.
\r?\n> Another derivative
\r?\n> appeared in the late 70s, called the CMP. This was the
\r?\n> product of a firm
\r?\n> based in Meribel, on the banks of the Rhone,a small
\r?\n> town just outside of
\r?\n> Lyon to the NE. These frames had features in common with
\r?\n> the Duravia ,a
\r?\n> coincidence that might be explained by the frames being
\r?\n> manufactured by the
\r?\n> same company or by the components and such things as the
\r?\n> round fork blades
\r?\n> being supplied by the same external suppliers such as
\r?\n> Pechiney Possibly
\r?\n> Duravia was bought out by the parent company of CMP. The
\r?\n> CMP used alloy
\r?\n> tubes passing inside cast alloy lugs, with a small
\r?\n> cylindrical sleeve close
\r?\n> to the entry point. Apparently at this point the lug and
\r?\n> tube are somehow
\r?\n> crimped together and the sleeve or ferrule covers the
\r?\n> crimping. More
\r?\n> research needs doing. It is interesting to note that the
\r?\n> same CMP lugs, with
\r?\n> very slight refinement to the seat lug were used on the
\r?\n> early TCTs, that
\r?\n> became TVTs, both brands being made just to the east of
\r?\n> Lyon.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Possibly the last manifestation of the
\r?\n> Mecadural,/AVIAC/Gnome et Rhone
\r?\n> internal expanding joint type of construction was the
\r?\n> HAUTIPROD frame that
\r?\n> appeared in the mid-to-late 70s. This had a very
\r?\n> modern angular appearance,
\r?\n> but the whole of the frame relied upon mechanical fixings,
\r?\n> with even the
\r?\n> round fork blades using exposed allen-key expander bolts
\r?\n> inserted down the
\r?\n> fork crown. These frames were made in a small town just too
\r?\n> the NW of Lyon.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> One thing that I have not been brave enough to investigate
\r?\n> is how on the
\r?\n> AVIAC and on the Mecadural, the fork ends were fixed
\r?\n> to the stays and fork
\r?\n> blades. They look as though they have been bonded, and I
\r?\n> have been told by a
\r?\n> former aircraft engineer that as early as WWll, there were
\r?\n> glues/bonding
\r?\n> agents developed and used in the construction of
\r?\n> aircraft fuselages and
\r?\n> wings.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> The nof course there was the MIOSOTTI..again made in the
\r?\n> suburbs
\r?\n> of...yes..Lyon.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Concerning Jerry's immaculate Duravia-Mecadural ( was it so
\r?\n> shiney when you
\r?\n> bought it or have you done it yourself?) it is the only
\r?\n> frame of its type
\r?\n> that I have seen with an alloy fork. I wonder if that is
\r?\n> original..or did
\r?\n> someone such as BARRA supply them specially.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Norris Lockley
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Settle UK