Black Oxide vs Stainless Steel Screws for Bicycle Parts
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Many people ask: Black oxide or stainless steel screws for your bike - which is better?
This article will discuss black oxide vs stainless steel screws for bicycle parts and show you why stainless steel is the way to go! Whether it is screws for your pedals, stem, chainring, or other accessories, you want something that will do the job and not rust.
Are Black Oxide Screws Stronger than Stainless Steel Screws?
Black oxide screws are typically just carbon steel screws with an oxide coating on the top. This coating layer is actually a thin black "rust" that is formed during this production process. Anyhow, being that the screws are plain carbon steel, yes black oxide screws they are stronger than just raw stainless steel screws.
Stainless steel, which great a rust prevention and corrosion resistance, is softer than carbon steel and can be susceptible to galling. For this reason, you want to be attentive when using stainless steel screws not to damage them by overtightening or cross threading them.
Do Black Oxide Screws Rust Less than Stainless Steel Screws?
Black oxide screws are actually much MORE prone to rusting than stainless steel screws. This is because black oxide screws are typically just carbon steel with the this black oxide layer of black "rust". Once this layer rubs away, gets scratched, or otherwise exposed to chemicals or salt air, the normal orange rust will work, and your new pedals, stem, chainring, or other cool accessory will start to look old and worn!
This also assumes that the black oxide screws you get are actually properly manufactured and not just painted black. Yes - that has been known to happen!
How to Reduce Black Oxide Screw Rust
We've discussed how and why black oxide screws rust much more quickly than stainless steel, but is there any way to reduce the rate at which black oxide screws rust?
Yes, it is known that applying a thin coat of oil/grease to black oxide screws will help reduce the speed of rust. This oil/grease can get down into the "pores" of the black oxide coating and help protect it.
When it comes to pedals and stems, we think you don't really want oil all over the place though. This oil can rub off on your hands, your clothes, and your other bike accessories. No thanks!!
Why Do Competitors Use Black Oxide Screws for Pedals and Stems?
At Moongate Cycles, one of our goals is to produce bicycle products that meet or exceed quality and performance vs our competition. So, we do our fair share of competitor benchmarking and product comparisons! During our product development process, one major step we take is to generate as many important factors to evaluate a product as we can think of as a team. We do this by pouring over customer reviews of competing products, interviewing actual end users of bicycle gear, and putting our own industry knowledge and personal experience to the test.
And how do we know that stainless steel screws are better than black oxide for a bicycle? Besides all the research that went into creating this article, at Moongate Cycles, we have over 50+ years of collective machining, fabrication, and manufacturing experience. So, we've seen our fair share of screws - millions probably! Stainless steel is just absolutely the way to go in any environment where things are going to be outside and potentially in the rain or getting wet.
So, why are many of our competitors using black oxide screws for their pedals and stems that go into bicycles? In short, we don't know! From everything we know, black oxide screws are just not cut out for use in bicycle parts where end users care about potential rust.
The only reasons we can come up with as to why our competitors might use black oxide screws vs stainless steel screws are:
- stainless steel screws are more expensive than black oxide screws, so they are trying to save money.
- they simply do not know that stainless steel screws are better to prevent rust, and they have not taken the time to research this detail.
Final Thoughts
When creating products for you at Moongate Cycles, we want only the highest quality and performance for our customers. This is why we ALWAYS use stainless steel screws for our products. Yes, stainless steel screws might cost a bit more, but who wants the rust that comes with using black oxide screws on their bicycle??
