Hi All, thought I would share my experience with you for usually a little considered piece of tandem hardware - The Stoker Stem. I knew what I wanted, a mix of stems I have had with Tandems from Jack Taylor and George Longstaff, alas, the Taylors are no longer around and Longstaffs no longer build Stoker stems.
D.Man***** from another thread mentioned he was having a Titanium stoker stem manufactured by XACD in China and the process he went through. Having dealt with the Chinese before, I new patience was the order of the day. Once I contacted Porter at XACD and sent him a rough sketch with dimensions, he then sent a full CAD drawing for my approval. Several drawings later and the last one I printed out at a 1:1 scale, made a cardboard template to try for size, fit, I approved the drawing, paid my money ( cheap in comparison to whats available off the shelf) and then waited, what a surprise when only five days later it arrived on my doorstep. The craftsmanship is second to none as you can see from the photos, really pleased and its fits and looks like I wanted it to.
In the photos, I have "Mocked" the build up before a complete strip down, soda blast and repaint. Im just waiting on the XShifter to be ready so I can drill the frame and set it up before paint.