BB tool that don't scratch the heck out of the cups???
 

I currently use the Park BBT-19 tool that attaches to my torque wrench with the 3/8" square drive. It works great but scratched the crap out of the notches in my SRAM Red cups. It didn't help that I had to remove them and put them back in again because the stupid SRAM printed instructions are wrong and called for a 1mm spacer between the BB shell and the cups when they weren't supposed to be there.

I just got my Rotor 3D cranks and Rotor BB1 bottom bracket in today. The machine work on this stuff is absolutely stunning. The cups are a matte black and look great (for being BB cups anyways). I don't want to scratch the crap out of these so I'm looking for another BB tool or some way to get them on the bike without gouging the notches.

What tool are you guys using and does this happen to your cups?

I have the Pedros cup which likewise attaches to a socket (1/2" in this case). I've used it on everything including my Chris King and it hasn't damaged anything, though I also smoothly fit and remove. If you shock on the removal, say by hitting a breaker bar with a mallet, you'll scour your cups, doesn't matter what tool you use.

You lost me after "smoothly fit and remove."

i've heard good things about the CK tool, but in reality, it's probably not much different than the park tool. i've personally used the park tool with no scratching, on campy cups though...

http://www.bikebling.com/v/vspfiles/...BB-Tool-2T.jpg

I don't bother with those. The torque requirements are so high, the basic BB tool works fine. And I've had no issues with them scratching the cups.

Here's a pic just to show you what I'm talking about. It's not the end of the world, but if I can prevent this from happening on my new Rotor cups then I would like to do that. The Park BBT-19 tool fits kind of loosely on the cups. It's far from having a close fit to the notches in the BB cups. This is obviously the reason why my cups are getting scratched. I'm basically looking for a BB tool that is known to have a tighter fit/closer tolerances to the BB cup notches.

http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n...9/b7c00436.jpg

And here it is from Chris King's product description:

"For installation of the bottom bracket we offer the Chris King BB External Cup Tool. Our cup tool is anodized aluminum and features a 3-8" socket drive and recommend use with a high-quality torque wrench. The spline interface is precision made to match our bottom bracket cups ensuring a secure fit during installation while preventing finish damage."

It says it's made for their BB cups, but I'm sure it would still work better than the Park one I'm using. To be honest I'm not very impressed with Park tools in general. I bought one of their cassette lockring tools and the splines were so out of spec that it wouldn't fit into the lockring of my 6700 cassette. I exchanged it for another one and it worked fine. They seem to have poor quality control overall. I wish I had invested in this Chris King BB tool in the first place, but unfortunately I didn't know it existed.

Wrap the cups with teflon tape before using the tool.

^^^ Exactly what I do. So far, my HSC bb gold-anodized cups are scratch free.

^^ yea. I've never bothered for a BB, but when you're working on fasteners that can not be scratched, some tape between the surfaces is useful.

I might have to try this. I actually thought about spraying the inside of the Park BB tool with a thin coat of that rubber-in-a-can stuff. I might have some teflon tape laying around though so maybe I'll try that. Thanks guys!

Traditionally you can get good results from the Shimano OEM tool, but it is shallow, the Park tool (need to press in against the tool the whole time to prevent it from starting to slip up and out - marring the cups as mentioned.

Believe it or not the CK tool is actually really well made and thought out. It fits better than any other I have used. i currently have and use about 5 different tools for BB cups. The CK became my recent favorite.

Doesn't surprise me one bit. CK makes good stuff. I know what you mean about having to push in the whole time with the Park tool. That's why got scratched. The stupid thing moves around too much and even when I try pushing in the whole time it still wants to slip away from the cup every now and then.

If you are using the Park Tool BBT-19, you can also use one of those big ass truck cross/t-wrench that has a 1 inch socket. The cross wrench will give you leverage on opposing sides of the tool and will prevent slipping and keeps you from having to push in constantly on the tool as Psimet stated. I don't know if you can get them at your local auto parts store, but I found one at a truck stop.