Hi there...sorry, been away from the site for a while. Thanks for your comments, Doug. We haven't had an opportunity to test the work yet, (still lots of snow on the ground here) so I haven't had a chance to see how the results work. Slotting the end of the stay certainly make things more difficult, as I had to flex the chainstay down to get the dropout in position, which likely caused it to come out of alignment slightly when the joint was set. If this comes up again, I'll keep your idea in mind (re: keeping the end open, even if it's only on one side). Hopefully this doesn't happen again!

Cheers,
Neil