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 On Tuesday, October 1, 2024 at 8:03:52 AM UTC-7 [email protected] wrote: > 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. > > On Monday, September 30, 2024 at 4:27:27 PM UTC-4 Garth wrote: > >> 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. >> On Monday, September 30, 2024 at 10:45:57 AM UTC-4 [email protected] >> wrote: >> >>> 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. >>> >>> On Sun, Sep 29, 2024 at 11:59 AM D H <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> 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. >>>> >>>> -- >>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>>> Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. >>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>>> an email to [email protected]. >>>> To view this discussion on the web visit >>>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/be783a3c-fc6a-490f-aeee-202b25a3326en%40googlegroups.com >>>> >>>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/be783a3c-fc6a-490f-aeee-202b25a3326en%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> >>>> . >>>> >>> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/53a00660-e6f3-493a-936c-b06c62b77b59n%40googlegroups.com.
