HELLO, and please help with a dropout question

[Paulo]

Hi,

I’m so happy to have discovered this forum. I write from Lisbon, Portugal, hoping for the benefit of your experience.

I have a ’94 Kona explosif, which has been my only bike since… er… ’94. I love it dearly for it’s comfort and handling and use it for everything except for single wheel fixed gear riding (I have 4 different sized unicycles for that ).

I never thought of it as a “collectibleâ€

 

[development_cycle]

I can't really give you any advice about the rust, but if you want stickers, there is a guy on here who's username is gil_m that seems to be highly recommended.

I have not used him myself but probably will do in the future as he has lots of endoursement on here.

Welcome.

 

[Mr. Zero]

It doesn't appear to be anything to fret about.

 

[pete_mcc]

Nothing to worry about, just thin paint around that weld (often is as the drop out tab sits proud of teh rest of the tube) Clean the rust off and put a bit of anti-rust liquid on it and then cover with either some touch up paint or a blob of your wife's clear nail varnish and it'll be good for another 10000km of touring!

Oh and I can vouch for Gils decals, absolutely first rate!

 

[JeRkY]

Yep speak to Gil_m for kona decals, he did me a nice set for my 93 explosif.

 

[Paulo]

Thank you very much for your help, I shall certainly follow your advice.

Dredging through some old boxes the other day I came across the little glass bottle of touch up paint that came with the bike, who knows it may still be useable...

Thanks again

Paulo

 

[Andy R]

Paulo - here's a photo of a stripped frame showing the LH dropout area.

As you can see, the dropout is brazed into the seat/chain stays. This frame did look a lot like yours, in that it appeared almost that the brazed joint was failing. However, after stripping the frame I examined this area under really high magnification and couldn't actually find anything wrong with the joint.
Anyway, I then fitted disc brake tabs and a chainstay/seatstay reinforcing tube, resprayed it and carried on using it.
A years hard use later it still seems ok.

 

[messiah]

I would say that the rust marks on yours are nothing to worry about - thin paint on a raised edge - nothing more, nothing less.

Here is what I ended up doing to my Explosif after the driveside dropout/chainstay snapped at the end of the domed chainstay. It did not part at the brazed join but the dropout snapped at the end of the join... this is not uncommon in this age of Kona that has had a hard life. The framebuilder who did the work said it was very well brazed together and was hence quite a straighforward job once he had made the dropout out of the rediculously tough steel he chose.

Thread on my Explosif here.

http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6365&highlight=explosif

 

[cce]

drops on my lava dome are in similar condition. i'm going to hammerite them when i can raise the arsed-ness