In auto body work a hole was drilled when you could not access both sides of the damaged area. This is an archaic technique.
The current technique is to weld a rod to the area, then the rod is pulled, then the rod is cut off and ground smooth. This is a much better method than filling your body with holes.
Bicycle frames are not the same as car bodies.
The best technique IMO for removing dents in bicycle frames is to hydraulically press them out. Clamping the tube may be the second best technique. You can take a block of steel (or hard wood), drill the appropriate size hole in it, then cut it in half. Stick the two pieces in a vice around the damaged area and tighten the vice.
Over and out, fat and tired... chris ioakimedes Fairfax California Please send me your damaged frames
-----Original Message----- From: classicrendezvous-bounces@bikelist.org [mailto:classicrendezvous-bounces@bikelist.org] On Behalf Of Bikerdaver@aol.com Sent: Tuesday, April 20, 2004 9:35 PM To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org; OROBOYZ@aol.com Cc: richardsachs@juno.com Subject: [CR]Frame dent repair question
Hello-
Maybe some of the frame builders on this list can answer this issue.
A
friend of mine and I were looking at his dented top tube where a
previous owner
had let the bars swing back and put a small 1 mm deep "dimple" in the
tubing.
Its about 1 cm in diameter. Not knowing any better I told him that the
way to
get it fixed was to use a rig that clamped on the top and some how
"smoothed"
out the dent, with a follow up with paint and possible filler of some
sort.
He then asked why not drill a hole in it and pull it out like they
do
with car dents? I didn't have a good answer for him.
Can any of the frame builders or other knowledgeable folks on this
list
share their insights of why or why not one approach is better than the
other
and why isn't the drilled-hole pull-out-the-dent technique used more
often? Any
and all opinions respected.
Cheers
Dave Anderson
Cut Bank MT