This I will say is very easily repaired...especially in the hands of a master framebuilder and painter.
Let me tell a story about a Pinarello with Super Record about 1987 or 1988...
Some guy, a category racer, suffered a collision involving his Pinarello. The bend back was so bad the the wheel was stuck agains the downtube and there were
creases behind the toptube head lug and the the same for the downtube head lug. My buddies and I thought for certain it was toast...
The guy really wanted his Pinarello back....
So he handed it over to Dale Saso in the next room...and Dale basically concluded...no problem...
Dale brought it back to the shop 1 week later with it looking as if nothing had
ever happened to it.
The story from Dale as I best remember it was as follows:
1. Sandblast all the paint off... 2. Fire up a furnace... 3. Place frame in a jig of some sort for straightening frames with the head section over the furnace - hot but not quite brazing temps....
4. Pole through the headtube... 5. Anvil lowered via pulley onto the end of the pole forcing an "unbend" of the whole entire front section.
6. Grab pole with a hand on each end - wiggle - wiggle - wiggle - wiggle - with a considerable amount of force of course...until the creases were almost entirely gone - or in "bondoable" / "filler" condition.
7. Let the whole frame cool off...
8. Some bondo, lots of sanding, and then paint and Pinarello decals and Columbus decals to finish it off.
9. If memory serves me correctly, a new set of those common Columbus forks with the aero blades that were on almost all SL / SLX bikes in the mid-eighties.
Hopefully the details above are close to what originally transpired...it's been
almost two decades...
The racer guy was blown away. Test it out for a test ride and was estatic. Went to another race a week or so later. Dropped by to inform Dale afterward that the bike was as good as new.
The rest of us in the shop were simply dumbfounded and reminded once again why Dale was just so darn good at what he did.
=8-)
Robert Shackelford San Jose, CA Wheels By Fleming http://www.mrrabbit.net mrrabbit@mrrabbit.net
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