Actually, the Mecadural frame I am slowly accumulating parts for has an aluminum fork, though not as elegant as the Sabliere fork.
Regards,
Jerry Moos
> From: Norris Lockley <norris.lockley@yahoo.com>
\r?\n> Subject: [CR] Mecadural- Sabliere frame and fork
\r?\n> To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
\r?\n> Date: Saturday, June 20, 2009, 8:10 PM
\r?\n> When I saw the title to this
\r?\n> contribution I began to sweat a little in anticipation of
\r?\n> possibly bidding on and forking out a lot of euros to buy a
\r?\n> rare early Sabliere frame welded up in duralumin. I already
\r?\n> have a steel from built by Sabliere Senior, way back in the
\r?\n> 50s...but an aluminium pne on the lines of a Barra, was
\r?\n> really something to whet the appetite.
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n> What the FRench seller actualy is purveying is an extremely
\r?\n> well polished Mecadural frame from the 40s/50s into which he
\r?\n> has inserted a pair of aluminium forks made by Abndre
\r?\n> Sabliere sometime in the late 70s/early 80s. The former is
\r?\n> very ornate with its large cast lugs and clamps while the
\r?\n> latter is very smooth and seductive..but it has to be
\r?\n> admitted that, from a distance the effect is interesting.
\r?\n> Mecadurals generally were supplied with a run-of-the mild
\r?\n> steel fork not an alloy one.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> The Sabliere fork is like all Sabliere forks that I have
\r?\n> ever seen A very accomplished welder Sabliere never..or at
\r?\n> least I have never heard of one - welded up a pair of alloy
\r?\n> forks. The ones in this advert are aluminium blades bonded
\r?\n> onto an aluminium crown; the fork ends are also bonded in.
\r?\n> Presumably he suse an epoxy type bonding agent. However
\r?\n> there is a possibility that the forks were made for him Lyon
\r?\n> Raccords ( later to be called Duracycles) of Lyon. This
\r?\n> company was basically an engineering company that did all
\r?\n> the machining of components for frames such as TVT, ALTEC,
\r?\n> GUICHARD - all fore-runners in the aluminium and
\r?\n> carbon-tubed frame market. Certainly the firm would have
\r?\n> machined up the fork crown and drop-outs for Sabliere, from
\r?\n> castings made by a local foundry called Fonderie St George..
\r?\n> After machining the components were sent a couple of doors
\r?\n> away to a firm that polished them. All the lugs for TVT and
\r?\n> the early LOOK -La Vie Claire carbon
\r?\n> frames were made by these companies. A few years later the
\r?\n> firms did the same operations for RBE who took over in a
\r?\n> small way when TVT closed down..that should be shut down by
\r?\n> LOOK.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Norris Lockley...Settle UK