Originally Posted by
himespau
So Sheldon says you should have someone professionally align the dropouts. How crucial is that? There's no way to do it yourself?
A couple pieces of threaded rod and some nuts and washers. Put the threaded rods in the dropouts and tighten them down so the ends are nearly touching each other in the middle between the dropouts. Take a big crescent wrench and bend the dropouts until they're parallel as indicated by the threaded rods. Do it slowly in many small steps, alternating sides.
There's a tool to do it that works about the same way, but the threaded rods are cheaper.