he paid 250 for it lol, its not suposed to look like its for a chug a chuga five miles an hour on my international harvester!!!!

 

Titanium is for weight and structural integrity. If he wanted looks he should have bought a different material.

 

Ti can be coated just like everything else. The process may just differ. It can also be polished like my ring is. And any sprocket will wear away at the contact points with the chain.

 

i second playfulgod it can be polished and will not add material or reduce structural integrity. donot put high heat on it it will tarnish and turn a greenish yellow and will be weak. just polish out with a 1500 orfiner wet paper . then polish out the sanding scratches

 

i didnt know you could polish titamium, i would like to see the finish product if you do choose this route. is it like a chrome color or more of a shiny gray?

 

like polished stainless, just stronger lol

 

Like I said the bike has 50,000 on it so I must drink a lot of coffee . I wanted the Titanium sprocket because of the lifetime warranty. The rear sprocket is custom made for the carbon fiber rim - didn't want to be stuck waiting for a new one to come from England in the event of mechanical failure.....

 

Here's a pic of my RR. Looking at the rear wheel you can see why my preference is for a Gold Sprocket but Silver or Black would suffice - just not dull gray!

http://s266.photobucket.com/albums/i...urrent=rr1.jpg

 

but it would perfectly match the dull gray lowers!



I'm kidding, do what you want with it. If you powdercoat it, the only part thats going to wear off is where the chain contacts the sprocket, anyways. (thats always dirty or covered in grease/lube of some sort.. who cares?)

 

Found a place in the states that will polish the sprocket to a guaranteed mirror finish. Cost to me $72.50 per side plus $100 shipping two ways.

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Just couldn't talk myself into the additional $$ - felt like I was perpetuating the ripoff by Sidewinder in the first place..

Opted to roll the dice and try wetsanding. Still below freezing here so off to the basement and out with the spraybottle of water etc. Went through the following stages:

180, 220, 320, 400 and 600 - boy that titanium is hard stuff
Finally went over it with some Autosol polish and buffed

I found it very hard to get a picture of the sprocket after the sanding; at least one which actually did justice to the shine - it turned out far better than I had expected. I think I will actually put it on my bike after all. Yet undecided whether or not I will sand and polish the other side of the sprocket.

Note - those morons at Sidewinder even stamped their telephone number in the titanium...... not impressed.