Originally Posted by
TiHabanero
... however as I have experienced and thousands of others with the old Raleigh's have experienced, sometimes it simply does not have a negative impact on the performance or life of the frame.
I had my '73 Competition stripped and inspected because I saw a big gap under the DT shifter stop and wondered what other braze might be missing. The framebuilder who inspected it called me to say there was little braze under the lugs and that a couple of tubes had cracked due to poor support. He flowed in from-scratch amounts of braze into most of the lugs. He also noted that the frame alignment was perfect. Maybe never saw the heat that would throw it off? My 'joke' is that the brazer tacked up the frame Friday morning, then took a long lunch. Went straight home after too many beers. Monday morning, frame went to paint. Painter saw all the gaps and used all of his skills to fill them with paint. My builder said that was what held the bike together.
I wasn't at all sure I trusted that frame to handle the washboard at the bottoms of gravel descents and didn't want it breaking under me. BTDT.
Ben