Frame alignment check/cold setting

[Wayne Lim]

I've purchased a used Litespeed Palmares, which is a 2001 model made entire of 6/4 titanium.  The frame looks to be in good shape with no obvious crash damage, but I now have had two rear wheels which sit closer to the drive side chainstay, including a brand new carbon wheelset that, according to my admittedly not great truing stand, is dished correctly.

Can a 6/4 titanium frame be cold set?  If so, is there a recommendation of a framebuilder in the greater Seattle area who can do an alignment check and has experience cold setting a titanium frame?

Thanks.

Wayne Lim

[Hahn Rossman]

Wayne

You should be able to put the wheel in backwards to check alignment. The error will be doubled. Then you can decide if it's worth bothering with or not. I would recommend Dave Levy who is now down in Portland, but started his company in Seattle. 

Hahn Rossman 

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[Wayne Lim]

Thanks, Hahn!  I appreciate the quick response.  It's going to be hard to find time to make it down to Portland for the next couple of months so I was hoping for someone in the area, but I also want it done right too.  

I did forget to mention that I flipped the rear wheel and it still sits closer to the drive side chainstay.  There's also a slight offset to the drive side under the rim brakes so it definitely looks like an alignment issue.  It's not much - between 1-2 mm but because the new wheels have such wide rims and I'm trying to run the widest tire possible, I have about 1.5 mm tire clearance on the drive side and 3-4 mm on the non drive side.  I was hoping a small misalignment would be fairly uncomplicated.

Wayne Lim

[Alex Wetmore]

Mischief Bicycles in Fremont is the last Ti builder that I can think of in Seattle.  I'm not sure if he's setup to do repairs/evaluations on other bikes though.  It's in the shop where Davidson/Kullaway was at the bottom of Stone Way.

Alex

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From: frameb...@googlegroups.com <frameb...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Wayne Lim <wayne...@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, September 25, 2026 9:25 AM
To: Hahn Rossman <ha...@alkifoundry.com>
Cc: Framebuilders <frameb...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [Frame] Frame alignment check/cold setting

 

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[Mark Bulgier]

Oops I wrote this yesterday but never hit send.  I guess I'll send it even though some of it is redundant now.

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No one can make a diagnosis on your frame without seeing it, but I still feel somewhat confident in my advice to you, which is "just ride it".  If the tire doesn't rub, then no harm no foul.  Maybe file the dropout a little to get the wheel closer to centered.

But if you really want to align it: it can often be done, with some risk.  The frame might kink (buckle) before it "takes a set" (yields), and then the frame is totaled.   Or it could crack, which usually also means totaled.  But when I aligned Ti frames, I was almost always able to improve the alignment without catastrophe.  (Except that one time it buckled.) 

I'm retired, don't do that anymore, not signing up for the job, just putting in my 2 cents.  So if "just ride it" doesn't cut it for you, read on.

There's Mischief in Fremont.  Previously known as Davidson/Kullaway, though neither of those gents are there anymore.

Their website has a section on repair, "partnered" with The Polka Dot Jersey bike shop who presumably do the mechanic's part.   I would assume that frame repairs are done in the frame shop, but I don't know.  I know next to nothing about the current proprietor, or who does his welding (but I'm guessing it's not the owner himself).

Though Mischief may be awesome, I just don't know.  If you want the guy with the longest track record, that's Deve Levy of Ti Cycles, near Portland.  He might be thinking of retirement though, so check with him to see his availability and timeline.  I hear he's booked up, and also expensive.  He is the best though, of the ones I know about.

tl;dr  the rest is on why we don't know whether your frame can be cold-set. skip if not interested.

It doesn't matter really if it's 6/4 or 3/2.5, what matters is how strong the frame is, and how prone to buckling.  6/4 is strong stuff, but you can still build a weak frame out of it. 

But let's assume this frame is actually very strong.  The yield point of 6/4 is higher, but it does have a yield point.  To get it to take a set you have to strain it past that point (gross oversimplification, sorry/notsorry).  With such a strong frame, that's a huge amount of force applied (usually with long levers), and a scary amount of deflection.  But apply enough force and it will yield.  The problem is it may buckle instead of bending smoothly.  That depends on many factors in a complex way, so we can't predict precisely when or if a frame will buckle.  There is one simple parameter that is somewhat predicting though, namely the diameter to wall thickness ratio. 

I'm sure you all know you can get much more strength, and especially stiffness, out of a set amount of material by making the tube diameter big and the wall thin.  Diam. as large as you can, that still allows a wall thickness that doesn't collapse catastrophically in normal use.  But normal use doesn't include the ability to bend or twist the tube past its yield point.  They might have designed it in a way that takes away the option to cold-set it, like at all. 

And remember, kinking isn't the only risk.  It could also crack. Cracks can be caused by many things, but most likely on a Ti frame (especially a Litespeed) would be a brittle weld.

So depending on their choices, skill and care in building it, it might be bendable, and it might not.  And the way to find out is to try it.  If anyone agrees to try it, they're going to need a guarantee from you that you won't be pissed about it if it's totaled.  The risk needs to be all on you.

Oh and wear ear protection, it can be very loud when the frame finally buckles under all that strain.  It's violent.  The guy on the end of the long cheaterbar needs to brace himself so he doesn't chip a tooth when the frame lets go.  I assume "wear eye protection" doesn't even need mentioning.

[Whit Johnson]

To be honest, if it’s only 1-2mm that may be how the frame came out of the factory, and only by trying to fit bigger tires than it was built to fit would you really see the spacing issue. Nothing against that brand at all, if you go to any bike show you’ll see what I mean if you look closely at a number of bikes, it’s a common problem and 1mm may be within the error bars. So the overall frame alignment may be fine when checked, but the tube spacing on the BB was a little off when welding or it moved more than expected when heated. Mischief is great though and should help out with whatever it ends up being. He should have H-tools to check the rear dropout alignment and a table to check the frame but I am going to guess that’s just how the frame was built and you’ll have to use a bit smaller tire. 

[Wayne Lim]

Thanks to everyone for your advice.  After taking it in, I’m leaning towards just filing the dropout to get it closer, because I think at this point it will rub under my 190 pounds and with the power I can still generate.  With it being a nearly vertical dropout, where should I file?  It seems I’d need to file the rear of the dropout horizontal to where the axle rests against the top of the dropout, but won’t that create play when the wheel is inserted?

Thanks!

Wayne Lim

[Andy Newlands]

Take it to Mischief and save yourself the grief.  My two cents.

Cheers,

Andy

Andy Newlands
Terra Nova Cycles LLC
1535 SW 17th. Ave.
Portland, OR 97201
503-224-1215
an...@strawberrybicycle.com
www.torchandfile.com
www.strawberrybicycle.com.

[tho...@kokopedli.com]

My preference here would be to get-or-create a washer/spacer that had your desired angle on it instead of filing the drop-out.
filing titanium, ugh, what is your chosen hub?   perhaps it's locknut would be easy to remove and shave...    much better i.m.o.
Yes, you have to use the same hub/wheel all the time, and remember to line-up the angle every wheel re-insertion, but I like that better
I'm weird...     but especially better would be a washer/angled shim-style that would fit on any hub.   1mm thick on one side and 1.5 on the other still leaves enough axle in the drop in most cases.

noMadic   Thomas

[tho...@kokopedli.com]

always another thing I forget to say
This advice below was given assuming, as you said, that you were not going for shifting the frame itself a bit.

noMadic   Thomas

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[Alistair Spence]

Wayne,

I see this as a two step process.

1) Get the frame evaluated. Get some numbers on how bad (or not) the misalignment is).

2) With the numbers in hand, you can then make a decision on whether or not it's worth the time/money/risk of having it realigned.

Chris at Mischief does excellent work and as others have said would be an obvious choice. There is also Duane Draper up in North Seattle, https://draper-cycles.com/  (He has a very nice alignment table setup). As far as I know Duane doesn't work with Titanium but I don't see why that would be a problem. It's just metal, albeit metal that has some different mechanical properties than steel.

Anyway, Dr Chris at Mischief, or Duane at Draper would be two great places to start with I think.

Alistair Spence,

Seattle, WA

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Alistair Spence,

Seattle, WA.

[Mark Stonich]

Before messing with the frame, I suggest putting it together and riding it. If it handles OK, use this opportunity to reduce dish by a millimeter or so. It is always assumed that you want both wheels in the same plane. But IMHO you can be a bit off before handling suffers. In fact I’ve read of cases where a speed wobble developed after having a frame aligned.

A couple of extreme examples, to suggest that a millimeter or so is NBD;

A member of my human powered vehicle builders club built a long wheelbase recumbent that he thought handled fine. But I noticed that he would leave two tracks 3-4” apart after riding through a puddle. And because he is 6’9”, no  one else could ride it. 

Back before the Cannondale “Lefty”, a Brit (Mike Burroughs?) built an MTB with just one suspension fork leg, through the head tube. With the wheel offset to one side. One of the better UK riders won a couple of races on it. 

[Alex Meade]

Just adding my $0.02 to the crowd, I'm regularly surprised how "not straight" some production frames are, and that cyclists don't notice. Over the decades, I've done a lot of S&S coupler conversions. For each of those, I put the frame into my main frame fixture so the frame's geometry is preserved through the coupler installation process. In the fixture, I can easily see how well aligned (or not) every frame is. Some are so far out it's visible just by looking at the frame from the front. But what really surprises me is that at least one well known production frame manufacturer apparently moves the entire rear triangle side-to-side to make the wheel appear to be centered in the stays.  It's not uncommon with this popular brand to see the rear triangle 3-5mm offset. And again, these frames never come to me with a request to check alignment or some complaint about handling; they're just here for coupler installation. Some are brand new, so it's not a question of whether the frame was damaged before it got to me. On the other hand, other production frames are darn near perfect. It does make me think perhaps I've been overly worried about frame alignment and straightness. Even so, I'm not planning to relax the standards I impose on my own frames and the tools and fixtures I sell. 

But back to the OP's question:  I agree that if it rides fine, leave it alone.

Alex

www.alexmeadetools.com

[Skip Montanaro]

And again, these frames never come to me with a request to check alignment or some complaint about handling; they're just here for coupler installation. Some are brand new, so it's not a question of whether the frame was damaged before it got to me. On the other hand, other production frames are darn near perfect.

When I took Doug Fattic's class, he actually did most/all the fine work. I chose vertical dropouts (most first-timers use horizontal because it's easier) because I knew I wanted fenders, so the rear triangle setup fell to Doug. I was kind of surprised how long that took for someone as experienced as he is, probably an entire afternoon. 

My understanding is that many production frames in the bike boom era of the early 70s also suffered from misalignment because the manufacturers were pushing them out as quickly as they could.

Maybe a good part of what Alex is seeing is just a time/precision trade-off.

Skip, Evanston IL

[Jon Norstog]

Back when I was just a beginner, I made a road frame to ride and show.  I used a beautiful chrome fork from a Redline road frame, when I built it up I built the front wheel to center in that fork ( I didn't have anything like a truing stand) and rode it also took it to bike shops to show.  One shopowner, a former nationally-ranked road racer in Albuquerque, rode it a few days and when I stopped to pick it up told me how beautifully it rode.  Later, when I had bought a wheel alignment gauge, I found the wheel was about 20 mm off-center and I had built it to a bent fork.  Just saying.

jn

"Thursday"

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