Originally Posted by
gugie
Typical French workmanship, I say. It's hard to tell how deep that gap in the braze is. Can you give a measurement? If it's only a mm or two, I wouldn't worry. On that last picture I'd try and gouge out as much of the rusty looking stuff as possible to see how deep the lack of brazing material is. It could be just flux that was never removed. If so, a soak in hot water and some poking around would remove it.
BTW, the only cracks I see are in the paint.
Hmm, I will measure later today. I think I see actual
space between the crown and the blade, though, so I'm not too confident.
Besides Bernie Mikkelsen, does anyone know of a reputable frame builder here in the Bay Area who could assess this and perform the fix if necessary? He's the only one I know of, but I've never had to research this sort of thing.