The mechanic I spoke with said that he had done this before. Hopefully, he was telling the truth.

I would suggest going to the store and viewing your bike. Even with the supply issues from this stupid beer virus it would not take a full month to fix a bike. My opinion is the shop is either fluffing you off or purchasing a new bike is a much better option than to repair the current one.

i'd go right to the shop

Thanks for the tip about that bike shop, Gebhard is freaking sweet. Took a bike in for repair and to try to buy a track bike and ended up walking out with a $150 single speed beater bike, it was kind of out of place for that shop haha. Chatted with him for like 30+ minutes about bike stuff, he's super passionate about bikes. also got a sick retro racing cap and a 150$ saddle to put on the single speed to protect my dick, figured I can just put the nice saddle on whatever bike im riding most.

Chatting with Gebhard when bringing bikes in for work or picking them up is one thing I really missed the last year and a half, with COVID and all.

The mechanic called today and told me what he'd done for the stuck driveside cup: long cheater bar, hit wrench to jar it loose, 3 different lubricants/solvents, heated it to try to get the materials to expand differently/melt any red loctite, cool treated it to try to get one to shrink more than the other, something else, I can't remember. Basically, all the things I would have tried had I the equipment (and if my back weren't injured from getting hit by a car which wrecked the bike that this was supposed to replace).

He said his next step was to hammer out the axle and get the grinder out, but was going out of town and couldn't get to that until Tuesday.

I said that, before we tried something that drastic, I'd contact Litespeed (who built the bike) in the meantime and see if they had any advice about special tricks because I'd never had any experience with at Ti frameset before.

Hell, at this point, I'd be interested to see how much it'd cost to get them to cut out and replace the BB shell. Probably more than it's worth for a 25-year old frame, but the geometry is spot on for me and the frame cost ~$500, which isn't that bad for a frameset that ticked so many of my boxes (level top tube, Eddy Merckx - something I'd always wanted, preferably a lugged MXL Leader, but this is the same geometry - Ti frame, room to fit 28 or maybe 30 mm tires without scary clearance, great shape other than BB, threaded headset, classic-ish looks, but ability to wear modern drivetrain without modifications), in my size (64x62 doesn't give me a lot of options).

The wrecked bike that this is replacing is a pro-tour team replica frame from the early 90's and while this doesn't have the cool paint job, lugs, or internal cable routing, but it's of higher overall quality.

Longer exposure to the flame wrench & a few blasts from the air hammer is what I'd offer to them as a possible solution.