Hi folks,
I recently picked up a very early Bertrand (small framebuilder from the 80's working out of Hull, Quebec), and my "good deal" turned out to have a good deal of problems. When I stripped down the frame and started cleaning what I thought was surface rust, I discovered that the seatstays were not adequately set up for drainage, and have rusted through on the drive side. It is pretty localized, and doesn't seem to go beyond what's in the photo.

I'm not in too deep financially, and I thought I'd try my hand at a repair. (As far as tube replacement goes, it could be worse.) Has anyone had success with a partial replacement of a seat stay? I was thinking about cutting out the section of tube from just south of the brake bridge to the dropout, and replacing it. I'd use a small sleeve or a plug to link the two ends at the top end of the repair.

The other options is to replace the whole tube, but I'm thinking my first idea would minimize alignment concerns, and perhaps issues in replacing the brake bridge as well.

Any thoughts? Will this approach seriously compromise strength and ride quality?

Thanks,
Neil