I just put a dent in my steel frame

Just dropped my steel framed (and much loved) road bike onto the bike racks leaving work this evening. ARRGGGGGHHHHHH. So f*****g annoying!

I can see that the paint is cracked around the dent, but am wondering if this is terminal for the frame. It’s in pretty much the middle of the top tube so am hoping that it’s just cosmetic? Any frame bods out there with any thoughts?

I assume it’s unlikely to be fixable.

Very annoying, but it will ride fine. Yes it can be repaired. No it won’t be economical to do so. Economical may not be a valid argument though.

Repaired a dent just like that in my old steel frame. Drilled a small hole and tapped (m3 I think)… Not much metal to bite to but enough. Rectangular plate with hole in middle and two stud legs. Spread load as wide as possible and wind the bolt out.

Used light wet and dry to smooth out and found the closest match paint I could. Not ideal but in all cost about 12 quid plus a bit of time.

As said above, will ride fine like that no worries.

And yes I feel your pain

I may actually still have the bits in the shed… If you are feeling brave and want to attempt I don’t mind posting if you cover cost.

Thanks for the offer doncorleoni, not sure I’m feeling that brave though.

Certainly not at the moment. Probably best I don’t touch anything for a while.

In that case…. Find a nice sticker to go over it 🙂 you will forget about it after a while.

I dropped my new croix de fer 30 with lovely blue paint on its side a week ago and put a nice scrape on the chainstay. Grrrrrr. Now have more battle wounds but hey…. Don’t tend to look at the bike when riding 🙂

at the least repair the paintwork / protect the metal, I had a dent in the downtime of my old steel Stumpjumper for ages – kind of forgot about it until the dent collapsed due in part to rust creeping around the dents!

Hora, where’s Hora?

Like others, feel your pain. I once did that to an original Bontrager OR that I’d bought new and had for two weeks.

not much load in that area surely? just ride it, or retire it to a winter bike

It’s nice and shallow, see if a paintless dent remover could fix it?

if its much loved – get it repaired. doesnt cost that much.

Then again as dirtyrider says (pretty sure he’s an engineer) says, there’s surely not alot of load in that area?!

dont build any frames dirtyrider!

Googled ‘bike frame repairs’ and the first link has a price of £160 (http://bikefix.co.uk/frame-repairs) obviously new paint required all over, which shouldn’t be too bad (or could be very bad if you want it to be pretty)

I’m sure I saw a method where it was pulled out (as above) then silver soldered or braze dribbled in & then polished out to near round.

It’s steel. It’s basically a glorified girder. It’ll be reet!

See what Argos Cycles, Bristol have to say.

It’s not really much different from the dents they put on the insides of chainstays to make space for tyres. I would certainly repair the paint though.

Think I might just leave it for the moment. Try to protect it from rust (I read nail varnish is good for this?) and put a sticker on it.

I do live in bristol though, so may well call the guys at Argos.

Totally fixable… although you may end up with a small dent still there, which can easily be filled.

Around new year someone pointed out that my Roadrat had a dent very similar to that on the top tube, in fact maybe a little worse. I’d not seen the dent before, but can only guess it happened when the bike fell against something, no idea when though.

Anyway, after a little searching I found that dents like that can be repaired using a tube rolling technique. Essentially you clamp two pieces of wood or metal, which are the exact diameter of the tube, around the tube using a vice. Then tighten the vice a little, rotating the frame in the clamps, then tighten some more, rotate, tighten, rotate, until everything is clamped up tight.

What it does is put pressure on the high points of the dent, pressing them in, which in turn forces the dent to pop back out again. Unforunately it doesn’t fully pop back out, but it comes most of the way. The other issue is that it takes a lot of paint off… which I ended up just cleaning up with some emory cloth and painting with some old car paint I had laying about… it’s a scrappy looking job, but it’s just my commuter. But nothing to stop you sanding the area down nicely, filling the remaining dent, cleaning it all up an then getting it repainted properly.

As for the clamping blocks, I made mine out of the hard wood I had kicking about, cut that in half and then bought a forstner bit for the drill to make a exact 28.6mm hole in the middle of the pair. You can also buy the blocks, which are pretty cheap over in the States, but seem to be like rocking horse poo over here unforunately.

Yes, I do that with tube blocks – though I use precision aluminium ones, very accurate and amazing how much of a dent they’ll get out.

I was quite surprised how much of the dent I got out just using my cobbled together ones!!

Was quite satisfying when I started to clamp it up and I heard the dent pop out a little.

The first attempt wasn’t quite as successfull though, I’d cut the blocks with the grain going the wrong way which meant that as I clamped everything up, the blocks just split and almost ended up dropping the frame onto the edge of the bottom of the vice! Oops.

Then again as dirtyrider says (pretty sure he’s an engineer) says, there’s surely not alot of load in that area?!

dont build any frames dirtyrider!

😆

im NHS, I’ve got a repaired carbon frame with a hole in exact the same place,

been right for years,

explain then, where the load in that area come from?

I ran an old Cougar with a dent like that for a few years.
Was absolutely fine.
Sold to a chap from here, who’s probably still riding it now.

As above – most of that would roll out, as there are no sharp creases.

House insurance claim for me and just get a new one!

If it’s structurally sound why not take it back to bare metal and use car filler for cosmetics before a re-paint?

As Ben said that would roll out with frame blocks quite successfully I expect. You would need new paint after though, either all over if you want it to look nice, or just in that area if you are not too fussed. Whereabouts are you? I likely have some blocks the right size – looks like a Genesis with a 28.6mm/1.125″ dia TT?

Are steel frames more susceptible to dents than Aluminum?
Years ago I had a steel GT tequesta that got a dent just like that in it; seemingly from just being in the garage.

Since then always had Aluminum or Ti bikes and despite throwing them down the sides of mountains – touch wood no issues.

I suppose wall thicknesses can be thinner for steel since its a harder material….?

Taking it to the guys at Argos cycles tomorrow to get their opinion.

Will then go do one of two routes:

Frame blocks, touch up and covering sticker.
or
Ignore, touchup and covering sticker.

Are steel frames more susceptible to dents than Aluminum?

Not really, although they can be pretty thin too nowadays. Dent resistance is a function of wall thickness, tube diameter and material. Big tubes with flatter surfaces, thin walls, and weaker materials (big aluminium tubes) dent easier than smaller diameter tubes, with thicker walls and stronger materials (skinny steel frame), although steel tubes are often still thinner the strength of steel and the narrower diameter reist the dents.

Looking at my bikes the downtube on my aluminium frames are more pock marked than a teenagers face, whereas my steel frames are just chipped (appart from the Mariachi which has a similar but smaller dent to the OP).

As Ben said that would roll out with frame blocks quite successfully I expect. You would need new paint after though

I’m often amazed at how little damage is done by tube blocks – though in this case there’s paint loss already.

So the official line from Argos:

It’s fine. If it breaks, it’ll break slowly and start creaking first. Very unlikely to shear off and send me A over T.

Pretty much as per STW feelings then.

For repairs, I could go down the tube blocks route if I wanted, or even get the top tube replaced, but both would result in a re-spray.

Think I’ll just put a sticker over it and be done.