Originally Posted by Dirtdrop
It always bothered me that using this method assumes that the stays will bend equally when equal pressure is applied to them. There's no reason to believe that, especially when the drive side stay is crimped for chainwheel clearance.
I recently spread a frame from 126 to 130 and thought about that same problem. Instead of cold-setting the frame I just spread it the 4mm to get the rear hub in there. It wasn't too hard and everything seems to be aligned correctly.
I'm going to need to do the same thing with some forks. Modern hubs seem to be about 4 to 6 mm wider. Do we think the same thing will work?