I already scratched my bars...

[D H]

The sleeve of my Billie bars got pretty scratched when installing them in my new 90-190 stem.  I moved the bar where I wanted it while it wasn't fully tightened, and then i noticed two impressive scratches that looked like they were caused by the corners of the face plate and of the front of the stem body.  I'm just wondering what happened and if anybody else has experienced this.  This has never happened with all the other stems I've worked with.

I'd like to prevent these scratches in the future.  Not sure if these stems are treated with anything, but maybe smoothing out the corners/edges of the stem with a Dremel or maybe even a Flex-Hone? (They seemed like they could be smoother when a ran my finger over them.)  Or should I have just been more careful?  It just scratched so easily.  Maybe this stem is a defect?

And are we supposed to be putting grease at the bar-stem interface?  This situation reminds me of seatposts.

[Patrick Moore]

The usual trick is the pry the clamp open beyond the natural relaxed position with clamping bolt removed, either with a special tool (Nitto makes or made one) or by reversing the clamp bolt and driving it in from the other side against a penny to spread the clamp, or -- not recommended because it can easily slip and gouge something, but I've done it -- using a really bit flathead screwdriver or some other flat, rigid, and long lever as a prying tool. Come to think of it, I do have a small crowbar ...

I've gotten 26.4 mm Cinelli Giro d'Italia bars unmarred into 25.4 mm Tioga T-Bone stems with very wide, sharp-shouldered clamps using the reversed bolt and penny trick. The T-Bones were steel so I had no qualms; would NOT do this with aluminum. If this works for very curvy drop bars wholly 1 mm wider than the clamp, it should work for Billies and a stem with properly-sized clamp.

Or, use the modern easy-way-out: buy a stem with a multi-bolt removable faceplate.

Me, with all the talk of long-sweepback bars moving in single-bolt clamps, I'd be loath to put grease on the clamp area that might encourage such movement.

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Patrick Moore

Alburquerque, Nuevo Mexico, Etats Unis d'Amerique, Orbis Terrarum

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[Max S]

Sometimes I file the gap in the clamp from the bar side with a round file, and then try to round out the corners. I also do something like this to some cranks that have stress risers in places, but are otherwise good. 

- Max "taking care of stress risers" in A2

[John Dewey]

+ 1 Patrick. That’s the way it’s done!

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/CALuTfgscZM_3K3cF2ND93-Y7dsusArw9Yea34TGwSFkdzRZhUg%40mail.gmail.com.

[John Dewey]

And remember, Nitto makes a gorgeous stem tool to pry it open—no scratches. Should always be close by. 

https://www.retro-gression.com/products/nitto-stem-spreading-tool-4?srsltid=AfmBOor8r5NTQsBpyFBjBWyUHqQRW0LGQXux2pGJflUTL3856uDFFFvJ

JD

[D H]

Just to clarify: my stem is TIG/steel and has a four-bolt face plate.  It's the 90-190 that Riv sells, not a Tallux or Technomic or similar.  For the latter, I've never had a problem with scratches; I just use a plastic tire lever to pry them open a little bit to slide the bars in.

What I'm talking about is the corners of the face plate being kinda sharp and gouging my handlebars.

[Stephen Durfee]

Wow, I love the penny trick....wish I had heard of that several scratched bars ago. 

[David Ross]

Definitely don’t grease. I use Park anti slip gel on mine and I can’t get them not to slip without it. On any of the swept bars, if I’m standing and applying leverage to the bars, I’m always doing so in front of the brake levers and never at the bar ends. Personally, I’ve always had bad luck with single bolt stems and swept bars for anything hit the most casual of riding. The single best thing I’ve found are BMX stems, the only downside being weight and the fact that you can’t really find them with a reach over 70mm. 

[Garth]

For a steel open face stem with sharp edges use some fine grit sandpaper or emery cloth and gently smooth over the edges using your fingers. Wear a leather glove if it's really rough. Careful use of rotary tool would work as long as you are careful and use a light touch and nothing too abrasive. You just want to take the sharp edge off and it takes very little to do that.

I don't care about superficial scratches on bikes but I do care about cutting fingers on edges that ought to have been finished at the factory.

[Eric Marth]

Ouch! Sorry to hear about the scratches. Never fun to encounter damage before you've even left the house. 

Never had this problem with Nitto stems and certainly not with a face plate stem. There's plenty of length in the bolts to back them out without removing the plate while allowing plenty of clearance for your bars to slide in. 

That said, you might have a face plate that has QC issues, I'd advise removing the plate and having a look. Should be fairly straightforward to pop the plate off for a visual inspection. Carefully touch the edges of the plate to see if they're sharp to the touch. Perhaps there's a raised burr somewhere that was missed during finishing. If the edges are sharp or you find a burr you can address them with some 150 or 180 grit sandpaper or a few light touches with a mill bastard file. Whatever you have on hand, steel wool, Scotch Brite, should help ease a sharp edge. 

The most difficult stem/bar fitting I've had was pairing the Nitto/Crust Shaka bars to a Nitto Technomic. A real puzzle! I think the bars had to change orientation three times on their way through the stem. 

[D H]

Eric!  You have a YouTube channel, correct?  I love your videos.  You helped stoke my interest in Rivs.

The corners on the face plate are kinda sharp (as are the ones on the stem body).  I sent Mark (the mechanic at Riv) an email, but no response.  I'm going to try some emery cloth, per Garth's suggestion, in a 150-180 grit.

I was thinking of doing a couple passes with a 1" Flex-Hone.  I'd put some sort of spacers between the face plate and stem body to make the 1" bore as if the handlebars were in there.  I'm just a little scared to try.  Anybody who thinks this is a bad idea please chime in before I ruin my stem LOL

[Michael Connors]

 question: is that stem bare metal, or does it have corrosion resistant plating?

[D H]

Michael,

Not sure.  I'll look into it tho.