Originally Posted by
andiewithanie
i had it in my head that plain guage tubing like this might be heavier duty than the butted kind (ie 1mm all the way vs .9-7-9 or whatever), and could lose a bit of wall thickness and still be plenty strong enough, just in case i find some oddball seatpost in 27.2 that catches my eye. but apparently not.
If the frame designer spec'ed a straight gauge seat tube to lower production cost and determined that a lower grade steel would suffice for that purpose, removing material from the seat tube to allow use of a larger diameter post may weaken it significantly.
If your concern is about corrosion inside the seat tube, use a wire brush, as suggested above, or run some steel wool through the tube to remove corrosion without removing structural material.
N.B. remove the bottom bracket or position the frame upside down while doing this to prevent debris from contaminating the bottom bracket bearings. And be sure to use grease in there to prevent future corrosion issues.