SEAT STAY REPLACEMENT
Tuesday, October 9th, 2007
So this was supposed to be a standard repaint and small repair on an older Circle A owned by my friend Raivo. He had ridden this bike all over Europe and one of the rack mounts on the rear dropout had broken off (we used to braze the eyelets if we were using Henry James dropouts, but now we weld them). Unfortunately tho when the rack fell off it did more damage:
At first glance I thought the silver had cracked but no, it was the seat stay. Gives you an idea how strong the braze is – this isn’t even a super light stay, it’s Deda Zerouno, .8 mm thick.
So, out comes the stay:
I cut away the bulk it so that the 3 contact points (at the seat lug, brake bridge and dropout) can be heated and pulled off:
Then I fit a new stay to match:
Then some new paint, in this case Phantom Gray Metallic, and it’s good as new. Well, better, because the rack won’t break off again:
