How stupid is it to ride a frame with these dents?

From unxetas, I got this beautiful 1975 Holdsworth lightweight frame, which I'm planning to build into a beautiful fixedgear. Unfortunately, it has a few pretty big dents and since the tubing is pretty thin already, I was wondering how stupid it would be to ride this.

There's two smaller dents on the seattube and downtube but there's a pretty big one on the right seatstay. I'm posting it here because I'm expecting my local bike-shop to say it's pretty bad and than tell me they happen to have this beautiful frame I can buy. I just don't have the money for a new frame or to get this repaired by a frame-builder.
So I want to know how dangerous it is riding this but was also considering some frame-DIY on the seatstay-dent [bike-purists, don't read on, it gets nasty]. What if I rap the tin plate of a coke-can around the big dent a few times with a lot of epoxy-glue in between, creating a lightweight composite material? [did I hear anyone say Macgyver-generation?]

a frame builder should be able to get it sorted for less than you think.
I think you might be better off at fixing it then riding it rather than riding it breaking it, then fixing it any way...

"What he said". Take it to Whitcomb and get his opinion.

if you do end up going to witcomb, let me know - it's not far from where I live and it would be good to have a reason to go there hehe..

Jesus what happened with the frame?

and since you're at it replace the dropuots, braze off useless bits of metal you won't need if you ride fixed, then a resparay and you'll be as good as new

Thanks for the advice!
@Roberto: It doesn't look like a crash, maybe the frame was stolen once and this is the damage of the lock or something?
@Stef: You're totally right but I wasn't really looking for 'as good as new', which is why I'm using this old frame...
Seems not too many people think it's smart to ride it, so I'll try and take it down to Whitcomb for some advice. although I'm afraid I won't have the money to have it repaired. Does anyone have an idea on how much this is going to cost me? Also, if anyone knows a way I can fix this myself, I'm still up for some 'bricolage'...

I'm not a framebuilder but IMHO

Any tubes with visible creases/lines in them are probably dangerous and prone to failure. Any 'round' dents are less serious and more likely to be cosmetic.

However, that seat stay dent looks nasty in the first photograph. The rest of them don't seem to bad.

You may be lucky and just be able to bondo the dents, repaint and it will be all dandy. But you do want Witcomb or someone, to give it the once over.

You also probably want to strip the frame and really check the metal, paint hides many sins (such as cracking lugs, ripples etc).

i'd ride it

I wouldn't ride on that rear stay. Repairing won't cost so much, maybe £40 for a new tube to be fitted. It will then need to repainted to match the rest though.

To be honest, I don't think it'd be dangerous to yourself to ride it - it is a nasty dent, but if anything, the frame would get bent.. which would definately be a shame, but I can't imagine it collapsing in any way that would be able to hurt you..

I hope you manage to get Witcomb to have a look at it just to be sure, but on the ugly DIY front, you could bondo it to fill the hole a little bit and then wrap a hose clamp around the dent, which would probably prevent the tube from buckling? maybe wrap another one on the left seat stay to make it look intentional :P

If the frame is straight (unlikely given the fold in the seat-stay) then you could prob ride it like that.

I probably wouldn't though.

The seat tube ding looks borderline cosmetic. In general, a dent that isn't more than a quarter of the diameter of the tube is ok, as long there isn't rippling and the tube itself is still straight.

right, brief update: I'm riding it and I'm loving it, I fixed the seat-stay dent with loads of areldite and a coke-can [homemade composites], put it all together with the bunch of parts I got get my hands on for not too much money and it looks like this:

Nice one meneer - much better to see it on the road than in a skip!

Reckon you've done the right thing with the DIY support - if you ride it for a while and get attached to the ride - THEN get it done properly?

meneer I fixed the seat-stay dent with loads of areldite and a coke-can. . .

No, you didn't ! - you covered the dent up cosmetically, nothing more, if it is going to fail, it still will fail.

Come on leeww.. have you ever seen a Coke can crushed before?
No, I didn't think so!

;)

get a toilet plunger and see if you can suck the dent out.

I'd quite like to cover a bike in coke cans. Have to tape or filler up the edges though.

tallsam I'd quite like to cover a bike in coke cans. Have to tape or filler up the edges though.

Googling to see if anyone had done it.. I found this:

OMG. Want. Now.

Nah, you want one of these:

4 man bike. called ZEM (Zero Emissions Machine) .
drove 7 hours to minneapolis sat morning and back sunday morning by myself in a small izuzu pick up. got from a crazy bike shop guy who is me if I had a couple million bucks. way too many projects and irons in the fire. swiss made, only 300 before the company went bankrupt. independent 7 speed internal shifters for each person. motorcycle disc brakes. originally went for 8K. I got it for $900. can it move? hell yeah !! goal is pulling 8 ft. trailer my battery powered music duo twang bang on it for special events, kids shows, crit mass, roller derby events (dress up as a big roller skate) etc.....
yippeeeeeeeeeeeee wheeeeeeeeeeee

meneer, that is a sweet looking bike dude. hope it holds out and in any case would be well worth the investment if you get a proper fix sorted.

it looks great as I said before.. I'm happy that it's being used! Kinda wish I had gone through the trouble of converting it myself :)

hippy Come on leeww.. have you ever seen a Coke can crushed before?
No, I didn't think so!

;)

For a minute I thought he had used a paper label from a 1 litre coke bottle, but now that I see it is an actual coke can I think it should be absolutely fine.

Must rush, the cling film that I use as a front door has blown through again. . . .

trust me, 3 layers of coke-can immersed in areldite (epoxy glue) is quite the opposite of fixing cosmetically: it looks ugly and it's stronger than the rest of that seat-stay. Although I must admit the result comes nowhere near hippy's machine, that must be the mothership of all bicycles... love it