Maybe This Will Buff Out?

Longterm readers may remember that I was involved in a rather bad accident with my then  new Tommasini Diamante in early July, 2010.

I only can now bear to show some post-accident pics of the Diamante.  First, the overall damage.  Remarkably, there is essentially no road rash, this was a solid, dead center bulls-eye connection:

There is some paint buckling on the top of the top tube indicating a bent tube. The little dotty bumps forward of the paint cracks are just pre-existing paint irregularities.

There is similar paint cracking on top of downtube.

The bottom sides of both the top and down tubes do not have any obvious creases but do have some waviness that can be felt with ones finger tips.

The head tube appears straight.

Shortly after the accident, I sent these pictures to Tommasini.  They suggested the frame was a total loss.  However, I'm not so sure and I may try to have the frame aligned/straightened before writing off this work of art.

Eagle-eyed viewers may note that the wheels in the first pic do not match those in other pics of the Tommasini on this site.  That is because just a few days before the accident I had received a set of White Industries H2/H3 hubs laced to Torelli Triumph rims and had not yet had a chance to blog about them.  Had I had the chance to blog, I would have been raving like a lunatic at how wonderful these wheels are.  The White Industries hubs in particular are real primo kit, things don't get much better than that.

Here is hoping that this frame can be saved.  I'm pretty optimistic - I once had a Tommaso constructed of Columbus SLX.  I wrecked it once and continued to ride it for 5 years unaware that I had bent the frame - it had much worse underside buckling than this frame.