Originally Posted by
cyccommute
...if the welder has experience with welding thin steel tubing. That ain't the kind of welder you are going to find in "most autobody repair shops". If dabrucru wants to follow your advice, I'd suggest that he take along a 'tin' can (really a steel can) and ask the welder that he'll find at "most autobody repair shops" to weld a plate like the one on his bike to it. If the guy can do that, he might be able to do the weld on the bike without burning a hole in it. Bike tubing isn't much thicker than a 'tin' can.
Hmmm. I'm too lazy to do the research but I'm pretty confident that the tubes on my nivecrom tandem are significantly thinner than a steel soup can. I'm thinking butted cromoly tubes will likely be thinner than a soup can too. OP's bike probably has stays that are a little thicker than that.
A lot of this discussion could be short cut if SlimRider really would cut some bike frames apart so that he could see the differences in wall thicknesses for the various grades of bicycle tubeing.