When buying an older steel frameset from a wet place like the UK, how important is it to check for rust inside the tubes? And is there a reliable way to have a distant seller do the checking? A frameset I'm considering is fillet brazed, and I understand that the bottom bracket shells used for such frames are just cylinders with no holes into the tubes. This would mean that any water that gets in the seat tube would collect above the bottom bracket shell and have no place to go, and I can imagine serious problems with rust at the bottom of the tube even if there are no signs of rust higher up.
Thanks for any help with this!
Mitchell Gass
Berkeley, CA, USA