Hardware Sources
 

Last night I polished up an old Cinelli stem and handlebar combination. No way those rusted old bolts are going in after that work.

Can anyone refer me to a handy source of fresh stem bolts, preferably in stainless?

Thought I'd ask before I started hunting.

How rusted? can you simply treat it?

Yeah, I could treat. But I'll have to maintain them and I live in Florida and it's humid all the time, and ... whaaa ....

The usual nuts and bolts houses don't stock stuff in these lengths and I was sorta hoping for a "just call Bob's Bike Bolts and..." If that doesn't exist I'll go ahead and clean and treat and probably blue them or something.

Can these guys help you?

http://www.nutsandbolts.com/

I've never seen blued hardware on a bike before - how do you go about doing that?

Proper bluing takes a lot of very fancy and yucky chemistry, I was thinking just the cold blue you can get in any gun shop. It comes out black, not a real rugged finish but better than bare steel.

But, having started thinking along those lines I could parkerize this stuff in a nice medium gray or charcoal color. That will very definitely keep it from rusting again and would make for an interesting contrast.

Actually that'd be fun for an entire TIG welded steel mtb frame, just find a big enough tank and parkerize the whole damn thing and forget about the finish for the rest of your life.

I needed a stem bolt for a project. I asked at one of the LBSs and they had a bin of old stuff that worked for what I needed. They sold me a whole stem for $5.

Do they have a Fastenal franchise there?

Sorry, can't help with the question but...

What polish did you use? Have any before and after pics?

You can buy bluing to apply to metal from your friendly, neighborhood gun-store. Seriously.

You can get titanium replacement bolts on eBay. I replaced all of the bolts on my Bridgestone with titanium. I spent way too much and saved an insignificant amount of weight, but the bolts will never rust.

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Cycling-Ti-B...3A4%7C294%3A25

I'd love to replace a few nuts and bolts on my Varsity, Nishiki, and Fujis with stainless, so I'd be real interested in a source for those bits.

One thing I have always wondered about Ti fasteners, though... It's not as strong as steel so usually you need to re-engineer a part for Ti rather than just copying the steel one. Is a standard steel stem bolt so over-engineered that you can just replace it with Ti or is there a risk of shearing the threads off?

I've heard that polishing the Ti part actually reduces it's strength, as the microscopic scratches weaken the Ti. I have no idea if that's true. All the Ti bolts I've got are polished. I understand it makes good medical metal because it's pretty hypo-allergenic or something.

I would think a blued bolt, while highly possible and not all that hard to produce, would still rust due to sweat. I'd love to have black bolts that wouldn't rust in a lot of places on my bikes.

Some bolts are simply the right size to be purchased in Ti from a fastener vendor, and many others aren't. I get all my bottle cage bolts that way, either in black steel or Ti.

+1 with Dirtdrop, and I think kpug105 can relate. I bought a Ti frame and added Ti stem bolts, brake shoes, axles, bottle cage bolts, seatpost binder bolts, chain rings, 2/3 of the rear cogs, etc. I went overboard on that thing and darn near bought Ti spindles for the Look pedals, too. A lot of money, and I didn't notice any change other than psychological. There sure was a lot less "change" in my pockets....

There are enough Cinelli stems for sale that you could probably buy one with good hardware, exchange your stuff for the nice bolts, then resell the stem without taking much of a beating. (Making full disclosure, of course.) The chrome bolts will do fine if you keep them clean & dry- wax helps, and a little WD40 will dry them out if they do get wet. Titanium can create a few problems (look up galling) and a 120+ mm stainless metric allen head bolt isn't something even specialty hardware places are likely to have. You can try Metric & Multistandard Components Co. at 800-431-2792. Good luck!

Hey guys, thanks. I knew it was going to be a long shot.

knoregs, I used oven cleaner to knock off the anodizing. 500 grit to take it smooth. 1000 grit paper to
make it nice and shined it up on the buffing wheel and gave a rub with Mother's to make it awesome.

Here's an after pic. The Bars aren't quite done. I'm not going to try to sand them perfect, just give them a final polish.

http://s178.photobucket.com/albums/w...oteusB4017.jpg

Fixed that for you.

Looky here http://www.mcmaster.com/#91292a423/=2mw10v

You may want to try Totally Stainless I found them to be a good source for hard to find SS pieces. I used their stuff when restoring my 1973 Toyota Landcruiser.

Thanks for the catalogs and the photo phix.

Thought I checked McMaster.... Hmm. Thanks. I'll measure and see if that's got it.