cudak888 

Just did these two for gmouchawar with the Park HTS-1:

















-Kurt

repechage

I am impressed that they visually pulled out that much.

Oldpeddaller

Brilliant¬ hard to see that the Legnanp has ever been bent. That tool is already showing its value. Nice work Kurt!

ftwelder

Nice work. Are the seat tube and head tube parallel when viewed from the front?

TimeTravel_0

Park HTS-1?

CrankyFranky

You've really gotten the hang of that tool. Great saves on otherwise scrapheap-bound steel. Kudos, Kurt!

Rabid Koala

Kurt, you are the first guy I will think of if I ever smash a frame...

repechage

That would be the follow up check. Better start looking for a surface plate with a "whipping post".

gmouchawar

I am grateful to cudak888 for taking this 2 frame on. I feal like I need to start a cudak888 appreciation thread.
Thanks a million Kurt.

The Legnano is my holly grail bike and is my next project. I may have a question or 2 about its build and I will ask them here.
The Bridgestone is my beater franken bike. I am thinking of repainting it at this point prior to reassembly.

People like cudak888, Robbietune and PastorBoB make C&V rock.
My hat off to all of you.

txvintage

Nice work Kurt!

gaucho777 

Nice work! Does there ever appear to be any lateral twisting when using the Park HTS-1? Would there be any benefit to a vertical brace of the top and down tubes to ensure the head and seat tubes remain on the same plane, or is that unnecessary?

cudak888 

The Park tool is pretty good about not shifting the headtube off center. I also install a pair of dummy headset cups when necessary to prevent ovalizing the headtube.

That said, if a headtube is off-center on any of the frames I've since straightened, I'll put a bet to it that they were like that long before I got to them.


No lateral twisting that I've seen. The tool is very stiff, and takes its vertical cues from the headtube.


Glad to help, Gabriel. Wish me luck today, I'm going to try and get them both back in that tiny box.



-Kurt

rhm

Fascinating!

I would be curious to know what people think this does the value of a frame. By which I don't necessarily* mean what you would charge someone if you were selling it, but rather what you would be willing to pay for it.

Take the Legnano, for example. Assuming you wanted it, as a rider, for your own purposes, then:
a. What would the value of the frame be, had it not been damaged?
b. What was the value of the frame, after it got damaged, but before Kurt waved his magic tool at it?
c. What is the value of the frame now, that all these things have happened?

I ask because I recently bought a frame that I believed to be in condition (a) but it proved to be in condition (b) and I am now considering having it straightened. I believe the seller will willingly pay for the straightening; but should he also reimburse me for the difference in value between (a) and (c)?

*I know, "not necessarily" is problematic. But unless it is crashed or otherwise permanently removed from the market, .one must assume the straightened frame will sooner or later end up being sold. Ethical problem?

balindamood

The Legnano bend seems unusual to me. Normally I see a more tight bend/crimp right behind the head tube. Do you use any sort of "encouragement" to get the bend out when it is that far back into the top/down tube?? I have not had the volume of repairable frames to work on with my HTS, so any discussion of technique would be helpful.

rhm

I believe the bend and ripple typically occur right behind the head tube on straight gauge frames. On a butted frame, the bend is likely to occur at the point where the butt ends. That, I presume, is what we see on the Legnano.

cudak888 

Here's something interesting: It took me until yesterday (in just the right light) to notice that my '51 Raleigh Sports "C" Tourist has very difficult-to-percept wrinkles corresponding to a head on collision - and they're located exactly where you'd expect them on a butted frame: 3" down from the headlug. Thing is, that frame is heavier high-ten than the '60s frames. Go figure.

That said, the fork did have front-end crash evidence (already cold set it), but the frame has a perfectly straight top tube, and 73/73 geometry. I'll bet you anything that someone took this Park tool (or a similar apparatus) to it in the past.

-Kurt

DRietz

I'm curious as to what that pink packaging is. It looks like it would be far more effective that pipe insulation.

Also, beautiful work as usual Kurt. If I have ever crash and all that happens is my tubes bend, I'll make sure to pop you a message.

cudak888 

Value = B < C < A, with exception to Confentes and the like.

I'll bet you anything that most eBay sellers would sell that Legnano frame, post-repair, as never having been fixed (not that I'm insinuating that gmouchawar would do so, by any means), and that it'd easily get a corresponding price for an uncrashed frame.

Nevertheless, I'm quite sure that this tool does not have the same community-wide acceptance as other cold-set methods and tools, such as fork blade adjustments with the FFS-1/2. I'd say that the "C" value would depend directly on the number of potential buyers willing to accept the benefits of this tool.

I've never seen it before; then again, I can't even get the pink hard-pack styrofoam that gmouchawar used to pad the Bridgestone's seattube with in Miami.

-Kurt

Zaphod Beeblebrox 

Its a pool toy called a Noodle. They're cheap too I use em on my roof rack to protect things from getting nicked up.

Awesome work Kurt.

rhm, I think if you were gonna sell (or purchase) a frame that has been worked with this tool would you expect it to be disclosed?

balindamood

Not necessarily so. I have seen/worked on a Raleigh Professional, Nishiki professional equivilent (I don't recall what it was called), and a Centurion Pro-tour. All DB tubing, all wrinkled right behind the lugs. I would also note that Tony Oliver's book noted that 531 DB bikes in a head-on crash generally buckle the tubes with the fork surviving; but Columbus tubes, the opposite occurs due to the differences in tube thickness/strength.

Regardless, I am still curious if there is any backing plate or otherwize to encurage the tube to bend back mid length rather than right behind the lug. Materials science tells us that the bent portion should be stronger than the non-bent part. With the bend that far back, I would be affraid it may want to right itself by bending between the bend and the lug; a sort of sine-wave effect.

Maybe I think about it too much.

DRietz

Pure genius!

cudak888 

No encouragement necessary; every frame I've worked with have returned to shape at the point where they bent. A case of the weakest location, I assume.

Best method is to take your time: Pull the headtube out a bit to start with, just to ensure that the headlugs were brazed correctly - you don't want a tube pulling apart from its lug at full tension. Once you've assured yourself of this, tension the tool as far as you feel comfortable, then back off. Chances are it will not be enough, and a first-try might not even yield results once you de-tension the tool. The top and downtubes will visibly bow under normal use. This is to be expected.

Keep a straightedge or thin plastic ruler on hand to check both top and downtubes after de-tensioning, and pay close attention to how quickly the top tube is straightening out - never mind the downtube. Tension the headtube again, and push a bit farther this time. Check. Repeat. Check. Repeat.

Keep on doing so until the top tube has virtually no gap under your straightedge. Downtube should be equally parallel, or nearly parallel (1mm +/-). If the downtube isn't close enough to perfect and you want to tempt fate, tension the tool once more. You may bow the top tube slightly if you keep this up past the point of "near-perfection."

-Kurt


Let's just put it this way: I'm royally pissed off that it was never disclosed in the auction for my '51 Sports. I still love the bike, but I'm seriously considering another one - just because of that wrinkle.

-Kurt

rhm

Agreed, for sure. But can we throw out some proportions here? If value A was 500 clams, what's value B: 5 clams? 50? And what's C?
Why's that? Sorry if I'm dense, I'm just not following!


Exactly. I don't like the idea of riding a bent frame. I would not knowingly pay money for one. So, having bought a frame that proves to be bent, with classic crash damage, how pissed off should I be? The seller has a good reputation and far more experience than I; he should have seen this. I'm pretty annoyed, as you can imagine, but don't want to overreact.

Zaphod Beeblebrox 

i say we let the market answer this.

do an ebay search for another front-end damaged DeRosa and flip the frame with full disclosure of its repair.

I think if you told me the headtube was straightened and then folloowing that the forks were cold-set and the whole thing was checked out to be perfectly straight, I'd buy the frame for 1/3 of its original value perhaps. Maybe i'm being extreme but I sort of think of it like a car with a twisted frame. No matter how good they fix it it's never quite the same. Is that a poor analogy?

gmouchawar

The pink packaging material are children's pool noodles slit to fit over the frame.