Misalignment in steattube weld by bottom bracket

Hi All,

I bought a new aluminium frame and have noticed, after a little while of riding, that the weld between the bottom bracket and the down tube is not 100% aligned. The misalignment means the seattube has a slight curve, and I'm wondering if this bend might weaken the frame? I don't want it to fail on me, and don't want to be worrying about it failing on me! I have attached a couple of photos which show the extent of the misalignment. Any advice welcome.

Thanks,
Ian

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In what direction is the misalignment? Left<->Right or Back<->Forth?
If the latter; it's just design: The seat tube is shifted forward to maintain tyre clearance with a shorter wheel base.

What you see in the second pic looks to me like external butting of the tube.

It's Back<->Forth. There's a bump, not quite a dent, more of a slight kink, on the left hand side of the seattube where the butting takes place. I think it's part design (the seattube is offset on the bottom bracket) and part manufacturing flaw, maybe lax tolerances, so I'm hoping I'm OK.

You'll be fine.

Nice, thanks for the reassurance!

The dint is sometimes for front mech to sit up against, also prob just to make wheel fit, dint could have been made by the pipe bending tool. Wouldn't worry!

What you see in the second pic looks to me like external butting of the tube.

This.

It probably looksa lot different to you irl than it does to us in a couple photos though.

Bottom line, unless there's cracks or flaws in the welds I wouldn't be worried about the integrity of the frame.

My old orange was like that and lasted ten years .