Originally Posted by unterhausen

The fundamental problem is litespeed believing their own marketing puffery 25 years ago when it wasn't even the same owners. Anyone that knows about fatigue failures in ductal metal weldments knows that a unrestricted lifetime warranty is silly. Although if you assume that growth is inevitable, the consequences would be much lower. Didn't work out that way. They certainly should have thought about the ramifications of convincing everyone that Ti was good for a "lifetime bike." Maybe they were hoping their customers wouldn't live long enough for it to be a problem. Although I have seen a number of pictures of litespeeds where a crack obviously came from a sharp edge in the welds. People have tried to convince me that was in a cosmetic pass, I'm not convinced that really matters.



That's a steel frame, so there is going to be discoloration. And a lot of that is carbon precipitating out. The welds on that frame look serviceable, maybe not the most cosmetic. I don't see any issues and it's going to be covered with paint, probably. If you see a ti frame with a lot of discoloration, it's probably not good. Framebuilding forums tend to be pretty gentle on people though. If I see any really negative comments, it's from people who would wonder how to hook an argon bottle to their oxy/acetylene torch. I'm somewhat sensitive to posting post-braze photos of my frames because flux carries carbon away from the joints. Then I look at pictures from builders with a lot of experience and they look exactly the same. I like to say that I use more flux if there are people with cameras lurking about, including myself.