Dents and dings

[perry]

Have you seen the hair dryer and CO2 method?

doesnt sound familiar . he works in accident repair so its lots of welding and pulling of rep mobiles that arnt too far gone to be written off . not so much of the finesse stuff

 

[kaiser]

I remember seeing this and was amazed but I think its hit and miss


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItSWESEVOUA

 

[perry]

The URL contained a malformed video ID.

 

[kaiser]

edited

 

[silverclaws]

I used to repair prefabricated alluminium tower components, and there we took a dent anything bigger than a ten pence piece as being structurally unsound, therefore it became part of the beer fund. That was for scaffold towers though, what people work on, not sure if the same would apply to alluminium bike frames, I suppose if serious stress was applied perpendicular to the dent, there is a possibility of the tube failing where the dent is, but how is that going to come about in normal use one could ask.

Straightening dented tubes, we used to have a tapered weight on a pole, the area would be annealed and the tapered weight driven past the dent, thus pushing it out from the inside, any residual unevenness was reamed off. This only conducted where tubes have to interlock with other tubes.

I think with welded alluminium bike frames, one is pretty screwed if it becomes dented, the same with steel, if you could not access an open face to drive a former down past the dent.

Dents in steel, perhaps you could build the area up with weld and grind down if the frame is to be coated with something. Pulling a dent with suction will only work if the sucking device can get a good seal, so chances not on a bike frame due to it's shape and diameter.

Personally though, minor dents like scratches, wear them with pride, at least it shows the bike is used and is not just an expensive parts hanger.

 

[perry]

i spose i saves taking the doorcard off and pushing it out or using the suction tools . reminds me of welding rings on a panel to warp it to shape

prefabricated alluminium tower components,

is that the slot together stuff ?

i hated going on that . always swayed in the breeze and if the ground wasnt perfectly level , which funnily enough on a building site rarely is it didnt fit together very well . probably a good thing that it was so strict with the tubing . i once put so many blocks on normal scaffold that the lift sank a few inchs , the scaffs wernt very happy and had to put in extra bracing just incase

 

[silverclaws]

Yes, it is the slot together stuff, and as it was the small outfit I worked for could not risk any claims for damages due to the equiptment we hired out, we also had ourselves, all of us including the women had passed P.A.S.M.A and were therefore recorded with the DoT as trained to safely erect one of these towers,check and repair, none of our towers sunk, they went up straight as a die and remained that way. We also were involved in designing and fabrication of one off specialist towers, cantilevers and swimming pool rigs.

Yeah, I agree, even after erecting so many towers, it still unnerves when the thing twitches and sways a bit, but where possible, we always tied the tower into the building.

The worst bit was carrying the components across a muddy site.

 

[dyna-ti]

The lts frame i have coming has a dent on the top tube near the front,i intend to strip the frame, fill the dent using 2-pack filler,sand it till im blue in the face and repaint a nice cherry red
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I saw a guy on telly using a long thin steel bar with a rounded end ,he manipulates this into the car body then slowly rubs the dent out from the inside ,quite incredible to watch,program said he couild reach the areas even carlsberg couldnt reach

 

[ferrus]

On a steel frame, can't small dents be brass/bronze filled then sanded ?

 

[lumos2000]

i can see some experimentation with a hot air gun and a fire extinguisher in the very near future :twisted: