I read on another forum recently that someone stripped the paint off a high end bike and there was bondo all around the welds. I'm having an issue with my De Rosa Merak right now that I just posted in another thread..I have a crack in one of the welds from tightening a seat post clamp in the wrong position. I'm gonna strip down the paint tomorrow to get a look at it and possibly get the weld fixed. The welds are perfectly smooth, can't even tell it was welded so I have a feeling there is some type of bondo under there.