Dealer intimidated me.. Please help!

[Scimitar]

I am an engineer and work extensively with different metals. My advice would be to modify your existing fork by heating both legs of it near the crown using a blowtorch until they are starting to glow red a little. When the fork legs are hot bend them outwards a little and you will have no risk of cracking the welds.

You would have to repaint the fork afterwards, that is the only disadvantage of the method I am suggesting.

Also, if you use this method. when you have heated the forks and bent them allow them to cool down slowly. Do not quench the heat from them quickly (for example by dipping them in water) or you could make the metal go brittle.

+1 (random ahdfarhe)

 

[z0mb13e]

I am an engineer and work extensively with different metals. My advice would be to modify your existing fork by heating both legs of it near the crown using a blowtorch until they are starting to glow red a little. When the fork legs are hot bend them outwards a little and you will have no risk of cracking the welds.

You would have to repaint the fork afterwards, that is the only disadvantage of the method I am suggesting.

Also, if you use this method. when you have heated the forks and bent them allow them to cool down slowly. Do not quench the heat from them quickly (for example by dipping them in water) or you could make the metal go brittle.

Does heating for short periods of time adversely affect the strength/properties of cold drawn chromolly? (Assuming the tubing is cold drawn) I understood the annealing or normalisation process involves keeping chromolly at high temperatures for 15 minutes and then letting it cool down in air.

 

[oigoi]

As it stands the grain structure in the metal is an annealed state, assuming they have heat treated the forks after welding them in the first place.

Heating the metal and then cooling it slowly should not cause a significant change to the grain structure or strength of the metal.