[Closed] Does anyone do narrow/wide single chainrings in steel? If not why not?

I mean to elaborate, steel rings sound good for durability, narrow/wide sounds good for not dropping the chain. Pity if you can't have both.

Steel is much harder to machine than aluminium.

sideshow - Member

I mean to elaborate, steel rings sound good for durability, narrow/wide sounds good for not dropping the chain. Pity if you can't have both.

Aluminium rings last well anyway- steel will be more time consuming to machine, adding to the cost (and realistically, will sell far less as people will take the pip at the extra weight)

Really?
Why are Shimano Deore steel middle rings regularly recommended above aluminium ones then?
On One sell singlespeed stainless steel chainrings ,which perform a similar function for a lot less than the aluminium thick thin jobbies.
Fair enough more machining would be needed for a thick thin steel one.Alleged weight difference-quantify please,let the buyer decide.
Or cynically speaking steel ones will last longer so you are unlikely to replace as often......

Steel deore look stamped or pressed rather than machined.

Alleged weight difference-quantify please,let the buyer decide.

On-One Stainless Chainring, Weight 110g

**** me that's heavy! You can get Alu triples for that weight! 😀

Aluminium rings last well anyway- steel will be more time consuming to machine, adding to the cost (and realistically, will sell far less as people will take the pip at the extra weight

Exactly. Would you prefer a 35g or 110g ring for the same money? Most people will get tons of life out of an alu ring on a 1x drivetrain so the extra possible life of steel is less of a clear advantage

"Heavy" (weight difference is less than a pair of socks) and stronger than ally and the On One example is the bottom end of the price/development range. Make half the teeth thinner and use less metal on the body and it would be way lighter. I am sure a high end manufacturer could shave weight on a steel version no problem.And most users are not XC weight weenies but looking for reliability/strength and longevity.But TBH I have absolutely no idea if some grades of aluminium are almost as hard wearing as some types of steel.For the same money(if they were!) I'd want the one that lasted the longest but then again I do live in Yorkshire 😉

Does this budget steel ring look machined?
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If it is, how much more machining/cost would it be to make it narrow/wide? For longevity and price I could live with the extra 80 or so grams in weight.

Shave material and weight off a steel chaining, and it would get too flexi. Aluminium, can be thicker and therefore stronger for the same weight.

Make one if it's so easy then 😉

nick1962 - Member

Why are Shimano Deore steel middle rings regularly recommended above aluminium ones then?

Because shifting rings have a much harder job to do- wear isn't just about lifespan, it's also about how well it works, which isn't so much a concern for a single. Deore steel rings last forever but they shift well forever too, most alu middle rings last reasonably well but lose their shifting ability relatively fast.

But also, one of the main appeals of 1x10 is weight reduction. Triples are the heavy option, so it's easier to sell someone a little more weight for their already hefty option, than it is to sell them weight when they're trying to save weight.

Point taken Northwind

Aluminium, can be thicker and therefore stronger for the same weight.

I have one of those On-One rings. I also have had a Hope ring and now have a Works thick-thin ring. The On-One ring is much heavier despite having thinner teeth - and it is a predominantly stamped component. It lost the chain more frequently than the Hope ring, presumably due to the thinner teeth.

The thick-thin ring is much thicker because of 50% of the teeth being thicker and is heavier than the conventional Hope ring. An identical ring in steel would weigh getting on for 200g. The thick-thin rings are 3D machined on both sides to keep the chain on - taking that much material off a steel part would be far harder on tools and take far longer than doing the same with an alloy part. Looking at the wear on the Works ring I suspect it'll manage serious mileage - it's been on my bike since March IIRC.

So could you press a thick/thin steel chainring like they do the Deore ones?

I don't think so, the thickness changes are quite abrupt and the tolerances need to be tight to keep the chain on. And even the thin teeth on a thick-thin ring are thicker than on a pressed steel ring, so an alloy ring should last long enough to work economically from both consumer and manufacturer perspective.

Could probably forge it, if you had a bazillion pounds worth of hardware sitting around with nothing better to do than make £30 chainrings with it.

There is no reason why you couldn't machine a steel thick/thin chain ring and the weight difference would be minimal compared with an Alloy one. Yes, Steel is heavier, but you're only talking about a small component so the difference in weight is grams.

More likely that no manufacturer has seen it is worthwhile to do. After all Steel is not a popular material in the biking world for stuff like this and they clearly don't see a significant enough market for it.

They manage to machine XX1 cassettes from steel, doubt a chainring would be beyond them.

wobbliscott - Member

There is no reason why you couldn't machine a steel thick/thin chain ring

Nobody's said otherwise 😕 Only that it would be more time consuming to machine than alu, and that's cnc time that could be spent making something else.

But the points about weight are fair- a thick/thin ring is, inherently, fairly fat- the weight difference between a stamped thin chainring like a deore and an alu equivalent isn't massive but you couldn't do a thick/thin ring without having quite a bit more metal in it. It'd not be a vast amount, but it'd not have to be to put off a lot of potential customers- weight being something people aren't entirely rational about.

I've an on one steel chainring, its on the SS so cant comment on its chain keeping abilities as its nigh on impossible to drop.

However:
It really will last indefinitely, its been used about as much as the e-13 and hope rings that preceded it put together and still looks new.

The weight difference is almost 3x the weight. Yes its more durable, but so would be a 12lb XC hardtail, or 4kg rigid forks. Draw the line somewhere, to me a year is OK for a chainring so I'd be happy to save that much weight.

Cost, there's far less machining on the O-O ring (e-13 and hope are comparable), cost was about the same. I'm not even convinced the O-O is circular, certainly its much harder to get it set up evenly without high spots!

Who recommends the steel deore ring over an alloy version? I use the alloy versions as the teeth usually snap off before bending. The amount of shift problems with steel rings is usually bent teeth or rings bent between the bolt spans. This is what I've been finding on most people's bikes and I've only found a few broken teeth on my middle rings. Would hate to bend a tooth mid ride/race so this is why alloy is my fav.

Could probably forge it, if you had a bazillion pounds worth of hardware sitting around with nothing better to do than make £30 chainrings with it.

Is deore forged? Mine both seem stamped from sheet, could be wrong though.

On tubes maybe ......but teeth on a chainring are pretty much the same size whether steel or ally I reckon

But you need the interface with the crank to be stiff and resist bending/ torsion.

They manage to machine XX1 cassettes from steel, doubt a chainring would be beyond them

They do cost a bargain £200 plus though with a far higher RRP

Even in a less dense material like Ti is hard to make a ring of comparable performance (stiffness) anywhere near the same weight as even a cheap alu ring. Just check out Experimental Prototype or similar companies producing Ti rings- even weightweenies experience mixed results with rings bending and failing for minimal gains in the lifespan of the ring over alu (especially on 1x).

Is deore forged? Mine both seem stamped from sheet, could be wrong though.

But you need the interface with the crank to be stiff and resist bending/ torsion.

You can't stamp a thick-thin ring, it's too complex a shape. Lots of alu alloy parts are forged nowadays and/or forged and then machined. Steel isn't as easy to forge, it's a lot harder!

Having dabbled in cnc manufacturing in the past the answer to me is machining time.

E.g feed rate (how fast the tool moves through the material) of say 2000mm/min with aluminium, steel it would be 300mm/min - Time is money, tools wear with steel too, not so much aluminium.

I wonder how many you have to churn out per hr to make a 60k machine profitable....

As above, had my Works chainring since the pre-order 6 months ago - heavily ridden it is still woring fine.

The reason there is no steel thick/thin - there isnt any point.

My guess is that it would be heavier and more expensive, you can't anodise it, so unless it was stainless it would go rusty. The combination of these factors means they wouldn't sell many. The marketing boffs would have to convince us that it would "bring the trail alive" or some other such nonsense.

As the teeth have a higher profile and you don't need to shift, the wear takes longer to effect performance.