I have modified it but it is still what it is... The frame has smoothed welds what is wrong with the stem having smoothed welds? It's gonna live out its days on this bike
It is your stem to do what you want with----but the 'thing' that people like about American stems and frames are their trademark fat alu welds. You went and removed what makes it an American. It's like ...um, stripping the paint from a Klein
......nothing wrong in my book fella, its still the same stem, only you added a touch of your cool, paint it/dont paint it, just put the decal on it....and you will be good.
I must admit when I first got here on RB I was quite surprised by the willingness of guys to make drastic changes, removing / relocating bosses, slotting things, drilling, refinishing and such like
But it makes sense we're expressing our aesthetic desires or our engineering choices and it makes the builds interesting rather than everyone doing the same thing - I won't waffle on too much....
Poor American stem gets shipped off somewhere to somebody who doesn't understand the beauty in an American stem IS the welds. Does the end result look good?...I guess so, sure. Should it have happened to an American? Hell no. :cry:
"Fettled", as a word, has taken on a new meaning. :shock: