Came out looking good, but too cold and snowy for a test ride.

He's deaf?
(Selectively?)

So, I was satisfied with how this bike rode and shifted with the wheel in the position I had it. I then took a round file and dremel to the top side of the nds rear dropout and filed a little depression. That steel was pretty hard, but it only needed to be around 1mm deep for proper tilt of the wheel. It seems you frame builders have to be very precise if something like 1mm off causes quite visible misalignments.

I filed the slot so as to not have to fiddle so much when changing the wheel out. Any fore/aft alignment now will be done on the drive side adjuster screw. It was all pretty easy. This isn’t a valuable collector frame but just something I wanted to keep alive.

Another anomaly was why this builder left the fork tubes so long. The BB to front axle is 24.5”, and the top tube is about 1/2” higher at the head vs the seat cluster, and long reach brakes are much needed in the front only.. I don’t have proper measuring tools, but it seems the headtube angle is at about 71 degrees where I read 72 is more common in this era. Either way, it rode nicely and I am satisfied. One poster on a British site said he appreciated a slightly imperfect custom hand-built frame that needed a bit of attention more than a factory built one. I guess that is the bike’s character.