One other reason to perhaps forego the respray is the location of the repair. The "transition" of headlug into downtube is a repair, probably filling a dent at the point of the lug and the adjacent downtube section with brass/lead/body putty etc. before respraying. Such repairs can be quite successful when the dent is in the middle of a tube, but in this case the point of the lug was damaged and won't look right unless the lug is replaced. It is possible you could get away without replacing the downtube as well, but not likely. More troublesome, damage on the downtube just below headlug is most often from a front end collision. If so, the fork and toptube could be damaged as well. Now it is possible it was a simple dent from dropping something on the frame or the frame falling against something, but if you think about it a moment, it is very difficult to dent a frame in that location in these most common ways. Certainly possible, but it would be rather a freak occurance to dent a frame in that way in that location.
So I suspect to repair and refinish this frame would cost much more than you could ever sell the frame for thereafter. And as to reselling on eBay, now you know the extent of the issues, you are honor-bound to disclose them, so you probably won't obtain a high price. If it were me, I'd have a framebuilder check the frame for alignment. If the alignment is good and if the damage/repairs don't seem to create a threat of structural failure, I'd just built it up, perhaps with less than top components, and ride it. Steel is pretty forgiving, and many steel frames ride fine dispite minor damage or repairs.
Regards,
Jerry Moos
Big Spring, Texas, USA
> From: joe mcdoogle <joethaihols@hotmail.co.uk>
\r?\n> Subject: [CR] RE Help date Colnago Super - issues!
\r?\n> To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
\r?\n> Date: Wednesday, September 23, 2009, 12:55 PM
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Andrew its seems you have a better eye than me! You are
\r?\n> correct there is a
\r?\n> small bulge running about 1/5 the way around the seattube.
\r?\n> I am patently no
\r?\n> expert but it looks to me like it may have been caused by a
\r?\n> seatube being inserted
\r?\n> only a little into the seattube. I must thank you as I was
\r?\n> considering a frame
\r?\n> repair and respray (at considerable cost) despite the lower
\r?\n> headlug problem.
\r?\n> Now it is definitely heading for ebay tomorrow!
\r?\n>
\r?\n> I can take a little bit of solice from the fact that a well
\r?\n> regarded member on here
\r?\n> was also bidding on the frame so I wasn't alone is gunning
\r?\n> for a turkey!
\r?\n> Hopefully I can recoup at least some of my costs on this
\r?\n> one, at least it has
\r?\n> taught me a valuable lesson.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> If anyone wishes to purchase a pristine early Colnago Super
\r?\n> with an extremely rare
\r?\n> period fade paintjob please don't hesitate to get in
\r?\n> touch!
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Regards,
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Joseph Headd
\r?\n> Manchester
\r?\n> England
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n> "Joe- What is the "thing" on the seat tube just below the
\r?\n> seat lug's lower
\r?\n> edge? Two shots make it look like a deformation/bulge that
\r?\n> runs around some
\r?\n> of the seat tube. Perhaps further indication of rough
\r?\n> former life. We'd love
\r?\n> a more thorough examination and detail shots. Not that this
\r?\n> prevents the
\r?\n> bike's worthiness of rebuilding (assuming structural
\r?\n> integrity), if anything
\r?\n> the story is more interesting.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Andrew R Stewart
\r?\n> Rochester, NY"