The sun is out, it's lovely and warm in the garden of casa del crayons, so I finally commence the sanding down and polishing up of the stratos frame I got cheap off the bay.
Caked in mud and grime, I work my way steadily to the front of the bike. Eventually I reach the junction between the downtube and head tube – I'm sure you can all guess what's coming next :cry:
I dig away at the 18 year old muck and grime, eventually finding the weld bead, but what's this?? I can't seem to remove that last little bit of crud at the edge of the weld. That thin little line that stubbornly refuses to come away. The realisation begins to dawn, closely followed by the immortal words BUGGER (and a few other choice expressions) That there will be an inch-long crack between the back edge of the weld and the down tube on the underside.
I've now picked myself up off the floor – having given myself a damn good beating for being so stupid as to not check for this obvious thing sooner. I'd convinced myself that as the frame was so over-engineered BITD it would be fine – school boy error
This is made doubly worse by the fact that I've spent the last few nights redrawing the stratos graphics – never mind they can still to to Gil_M I'm sure someone out there needs some.
I assume because of where it is, the age of the frame, and the fact that it's probably a fatigue crack that it's unrepairable even by a top welder (not that I'm one of those anyway) – is 7000 series alu heat treated after welding??? (the optimism is creeping in now)
Caked in mud and grime, I work my way steadily to the front of the bike. Eventually I reach the junction between the downtube and head tube – I'm sure you can all guess what's coming next :cry:
I dig away at the 18 year old muck and grime, eventually finding the weld bead, but what's this?? I can't seem to remove that last little bit of crud at the edge of the weld. That thin little line that stubbornly refuses to come away. The realisation begins to dawn, closely followed by the immortal words BUGGER (and a few other choice expressions) That there will be an inch-long crack between the back edge of the weld and the down tube on the underside.
I've now picked myself up off the floor – having given myself a damn good beating for being so stupid as to not check for this obvious thing sooner. I'd convinced myself that as the frame was so over-engineered BITD it would be fine – school boy error
This is made doubly worse by the fact that I've spent the last few nights redrawing the stratos graphics – never mind they can still to to Gil_M I'm sure someone out there needs some.
I assume because of where it is, the age of the frame, and the fact that it's probably a fatigue crack that it's unrepairable even by a top welder (not that I'm one of those anyway) – is 7000 series alu heat treated after welding??? (the optimism is creeping in now)
