Originally Posted by bulgie

How's this for an annoying thing to lose: on steel stems of a certain type, there's a sort of pedestal that the expander bolt head tightens against. On more fancy steel stems like a Cinelli, that pedestal is brazed on, but on some others it's a loose piece.

This Philippe (mid-'50s maybe?) came to me with the piece missing. I found a replacement, off some cheap steel stem, but it didn't look right, or even work right really — I could get into what was wrong with it, but suffice it to say I liked the stem enough that I had to make a proper replacement.

Here it is with the ugly incorrect part:

Can you see how it slips forward, so it isn't in line with the quill? The 72° angle of the top surface makes it want to pull forward if it can, and it can, because the holes are too big. There's a lot of slop between the expander bolt and the stem, and between the expander bolt and the pedestal doodad. (I'll just call it the doodad moving forward.)

So I made a new doodad out of stainless, doesn't look terrible against the chrome. Key point on mine is a tube down the middle of it that keys into the stem hole, so it can't slip forward, it is held precisely on-center.







Could use smoothing and polishing, but the chrome on this stem is bad, so I think I'm done. I'll polish it more if I decide to have the stem re-chromed, but I probably won't. I kinda like it with this amount of beausage, and it'll probably go on some old French bike that has a similar degree of decrepitude.



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