Droch Stàilinn. Attempt to save a scottie.

[Mickeyspinn]

Seriously no p take! It's a glorious colour if it were purple I'd say bin it
But that green is cracking....and the patina is lovely

 

[M_Chavez]

This bike might have to be painted instead of powdercoating to match the colour, but I'm not sure how well the paint will stand up to abuse.

Re the dent, Ideally, I'd go with Sheldon's method, But the PPE suit is way out of my budget.

ShelBroCo Dent Removal System

XXXXX

www.sheldonbrown.com

 

[Nabeaquam]

Dents in modern chrome moly tubing are hard to pull out. For my Claud Butler frame dents I bought frame tube blocks in the same diameter as my tubing (used by frame builders) to roll out the high spots on the sides of the dent. I used a pipe wrench to turn it around the dent as I gradually screwed the blocks closed. I used grease on the dent area to facilitate turning the tube blocks. After the high spots and out of round distortion have been corrected the remaining low spot would be best filled with brazing. If your not powder coating and using paint then acid core solder makes a nice and easy to work filler. Steel reinforced epoxy can also be used but brazing will work with paint and powder coating. I don’t see how the Sheldon internal expansion method would remove flattened high spots or out of roundness, but maybe.

Tube Blocks | Paragon Machine Works

Tube Blocks by Paragon Machine Works

www.paragonmachineworks.com

 

[M_Chavez]

Dent's about 3mm at the deepest point by ~2.5cm wide.
The DT is very slightly bent along its length, but I'm hoping that might correct itself once the dent is popped?

Tubing is almost certainly Reynolds 531 butted, so not cro-mo, if that makes any difference.

 

[M_Chavez]

to roll out the high spots on the sides of the dent

That is an interesting solution.
Will try to find these in the UK - shipping from USA costs about 3-5 times more than the block itself according to the sellers' quotes.

 

[Mickeyspinn]

That is an interesting solution.
Will try to find these in the UK - shipping from USA costs about 3-5 times more than the block itself according to the sellers' quotes.

That's how I removed my dents with patience and pieces of paper in the right spot you can get it near perfect. I made my own ...have a look on eBay there's split clamps for allsorts of stuff you might find something with right bore or shimable with sections of thinwall tubing.it needs to match your tube OD tho.
DT is bent...hhmmm ...I've a feeling that won't come out when dent comes out...more straight edge action get a feel for what's happened to the frame....I reckon a cars reversed into it.
When I did mine it wasn't just a case of straightening the top tube I had to twist headtube at the same time.
Before doing any bending tweaking and the like create some kind of jig out of stuff.

 

[M_Chavez]

I reckon a cars reversed into it

Several times by the looks of it.

There's (presumably old) rear triangle damage and forks damage that would have been caused by different impacts. DT might have been one of them or yet another hit.
Glasgow life is tough.

I've managed to strip the frame - will report later on.

You wouldn't still have the clamps lying around, would you? it's 1 1/8" DT.

 

[Mickeyspinn]

Several times by the looks of it.

There's (presumably old) rear triangle damage and forks damage that would have been caused by different impacts. DT might have been one of them or yet another hit.
Glasgow life is tough.

I've managed to strip the frame - will report later on.

You wouldn't still have the clamps lying around, would you? it's 1 1/8" DT.

I still have the clamps!

1 1/4" tho... Plus your going to need longer mine are only 15mm .

 

[M_Chavez]

Frame stripped. ~2,750g for a size 57 frameset. That's what I call a lightweight!
Bike built in 1961.
Campy dropouts suggest this was closer to the top end of Scot's range. Although, there were no strict models and customers could buy an entire bike or just a frameset built to a custom spec.


Frame:
- Dent on DT as described above.
- Old repair of the cracked bottom bracket shell. No throw away culture back in the days (although, who'd throw away a Scot in their right mind)! Quick check suggests the crack was filled with brazing alloy, then re-threaded. Will need reinforcing me thinks: either braze a plate on the outside, or do a cf wrap.
- Minor dent on nds chainstay right at the bridge - pretty benign. Looks like a filler job or leave & forget.
- Minor dent on top tube. Same as the chainstay one.
- Seatpost unstuck & removed. Don't think there is any damage to the seat tube
- Rear triangle a couple mm out of true.
- Ds dropout bent out of shape.
- Adjuster screws bent & buggered but look like an easy extraction job.
- General alignment still to be checked.
- Rust condition is quite acceptable - very little visible rust on the inside, which is always a good sign.

Overall, I think the frameset is serviceable, unless more issues pop up.

 

[Nabeaquam]

Ok folks, this is the most ambitious project to date.
Will greatly appreciate your help.

I've been looking for the right Scot frameset in my size for several years now. It does help massively that I live about 50 miles away from where they were made, but still these framesets seem to be quite rare. Not so rare that you never ever see one for sale, but when they do come up, the asking prices tend to be rather high and the condition is very well used. The Scot history website states that there were only about 15k framesets built between 1935 and 1983, averaging out at about a frameset per day, factoring in weekends and holidays. Most purchased by serious cyclists and used very hard during their lifetime - not sure how many survived to 2022.
Most importantly, I really don't need another road bike unless I sell my modern ti machine, so it was very hard to justify spending hundreds on a "spare" frameset.

I was pleasantly surprised when a gumtree search popped up with a local advert for a random job lot of low-end components still attached to a mangled Scottie frameset. The previous owner had the bike damaged while it was parked in a street. Took it to a bike shop techie who told him that the frame is beyond repair. The frameset was in my size and fitted very well into my criteria of a bike in need of some work & a bike without the period-correct components. Bingo! Thank God I'm not a bike-shop-trained mechanic, because I think this is repairable. At least I will try my best to get this beauty on the road again.
The seller was happy to give me the frameset for free if I was paying for the components, so the purchase was a no-brainer. He made me a very happy retro-wrencher, at least until I find out that the frameset's a gonner .

"Take it to the tip" I hear you say. Well, not a scottie. Droch Stàilinn's here to stay.

Obvious damage to the frameset:
- Forks bent out of shape.
- Deep dent on the downtube
- Moderate rust
- Rear triangle lightly out of true
- Frozen seatpost
- There's more to come on closer inspection.

This will likely become a long-term project in particular sorting out a gauge to true the forks & truing up the frame, but I'm in no hurry.

Beam me up, fellas!

If Scottie was one of my bikes I would try to straighten the fork while it’s in the frame by securing the frame to something like a trailer, side of a vehicle or between two trees or two fence posts with ratchet straps. I would put an old hub or axle in the fork drops, put a ratchet strap on the bottom of the fork legs, put the other end of the ratchet strap on a third deadman, perhaps another tree, and ratchet the fork legs back. If they are also bent towards the frame I would spin the forks backwards, put a ratchet strap on the old hub, the other end of the ratchet strap could go through the bb opening or around the seat post. Then ratchet it straight. I really don’t know in how many dimensions your fork is bent in so this idea might not be helpful. If the fork steering tube is bent you need a new fork tube or a new fork. It could be weakened from all the bending and straightening stress. Forks absorb a lot of force and a fork failure is worse than a snapped off handle bar so exanime the repair and brazing for cracks. Anyway that is what I would try.