Charles,
First of all; are you positive that the slot is "aftermarket"? If your D eRosa is an early one and it is built with the Prugnuat lugs, that slot may have been done by Ugo and his boys. That particular lug is ver short in the back. Many times in factory situations they just get slotted thr ough the lug. Seen it too much myself. I add some material to the back o f those lugs (working on such a frame as we speak) so there is room to m ake a nice slot and hole.
What to do with it? Probably best left alone if it's factory, which is p robably is. The original slot on those bikes is plenty wide enough; ther e is rarely any reason to deal with that on a bike like a DeRosa with a filled in seat lug and all. If the slot is suffeciently wide and pretty much square on the corners; it's likely a factory slot cut with a slotti ng saw as opposed to some weenie with a hack saw. Just a guess, without seeing it. But if you ask are DeRosa capable of doing such a thing on a frame; the answer is definitely yes!
Brian Baylis La Mesa, CA Ugo is not God. He's just a nice old man who makes frames.
I finally got around to giving a closer look to a nice De Rosa I bought awhile back. The frame is in superior condition throughout, except for one, really tragic flaw: some idiot decided to widen the slot at the se at-lug clamp for the post, and, not content to saw down through to the e dge of the lug, just hacked his way about 3mm below the point of the lug . He didn't even bother to round the bottom of the new slot, to prevent a crack.
I've seen this on a few really nice old frames, now, and in every case I curse the fool who would do such a thing. Not only did each of these h ack jobs remove way too much material, but every one of them sawed down past the lug. Something I just cannot fathom. How could a person be th at stupid and even be smart enough to know what to DO with a hacksaw?
'course, I know what I'd like to do with it, but I wouldn't say in polit e company, ya know?
Naturally, I'd love to have five minutes alone with the clown who did th is damage to my De Rosa, but since that particular satisfaction is denie d me, my question is, what to do?
there is no crack in the seat-tube--yet--probably because the clamp has not been loosened or tightened much since the butchery was done to cause a crack to start. I'll probably take some very small, round files and remove the immediate stress-riser at the bottom of the slot...but a crac k could still get started, since the tube is so thin, even if in a butte d area (or would it? I've seen it on other frames).
The one time I talked with a frame-builder about a repair for such a pro blem, he said you could either braze a sleeve inside the top of the seat -tube, or remove/replace the seat-tube.
Neither of these methods is acceptable to me, since this De Rosa is so p retty otherwise, in original paint and graphics (it looks practically un used, except for this one problem).
Would it be possible to braze a piece of lug-material over the outside o f the slot in the seat-tube, butt the new lug-material up against the ex isting seat-lug shoreline, then cut a new slot, or reshape the existing one to make it shorter?. Seems to me not as much paint would be ruined, and a touch-up would be easier.
Framebuilders! Anyone here know a good fix for this problem? I'll send the frame to you if you can do the job in a reasonable amount of time.. <g>
Thanks for any and all suggestions on how to fix this.
Charles "put down that hacksaw RIGHT NOW!" Andrews Los Angeles