Cracked titanium - Orange Vit T2 seat tube

I've crack in my seat-tube! Good news is Vernon Barkers Cycles reckon it's repairable.

I've had a couple of people tell me the use of seat post shim can cause this. As it's very common to have a shim on an Orange I wonder what folk thought of this.

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Does Vernon weld titanium?

Re: Cracked titanium - Orange Vit T2 seatpost

Aye - seen comments on another forum of good job done & they came up when I asked for recommendations on an Orange group on Facebook.

https://www.vernonbarkercycles.co.uk/re ... rames.html



However - Enigma was another recommendation,

Since your reply, reading on here, Vernons repairs can be a bit 'agricultural' & I read some criticism.

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I’m only a few miles from him and he’s painted me quite a few frames. The work is good but not perfect. In terms of welding I’ve never had one welded by him but I have seen some that he’s apparently done. He’s a nice bloke but can be awhile doing the work sometimes. I wasn’t aware he did titanium welding though.

I've had a couple of titanium frame repairs by Vernon. Very nice chap. Quick turnaround (about a week), decently priced, functional but not terribly pretty. I also had to do a bit of fettling after a seat tube repair. Fine for my purposes though so recommended.

Thanks.

Any opinions on the wisdom of using shims?

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I have heard the same regarding the perils of shims, I try to avoid them as a general rule but I don't think it's really that much of a big deal. The clamp is only tight on the post around the clamp, if you like, so the length of a shim is probably longer than the full contact area anyway. Although I do suppose that different frame material will take this differently. Suppose the sort of use may play a role too.

What I will also say is that I have had 3 ti orange frames over the years and every one of them has cracked. Not all the same way but I'm not going there again.

Sorry, just read that back and it's not much use really.

I've seen some messy V.B Ti repairs.

I was going to put a bid for the same vit2 as shown, and one of the Vit t ricktheuncivil had, and numerous others over the years. But a majority of them will have a crack, problems, so its put me off as mentioned above. Just not worth the chance, but good luck with the repair and am sure in the right hands can be repaired for light riding.

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I have a ti frame with a possible crack, not 100% sure. Looked into repair anyway. Vernon Baker said they could do it, but it would not be pretty, but £50 was the charge. Enigma (who I have used before and do a great job. I would not have needed their help if colourtech had not fucked up a simple bottle boss repair and filled my downtube with expanding foam to cover up their ineptitude) quoted 6 times that, but it would have been a proper repair, replacing tubes, though not economically viable in my case.

I cant speak for vit t frames as never had one (though seen a few on here and Ebay with cracking issues), but a lot of ti frames have seat pist shims fitted from factory, so it can't be all bad if designed that way. Most issues like this are caused by seat posts that are not long enough in the frame, putting stress where it isn't wanted (or at least that's what I've read). Or simply not tightening, or over tightening the seat post clamp, or worse, the wrong size post.

Danson, a member on here has done a number of repairs, and also does ti I believe. Might be worth contacting him to see what he recommends.