panzerwagon 

Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere, but before I go heavy handed on these otherwise excellent Super Champion Competition rims, I’d like some advice on best practices.

Rim got scratched up in a couple places from an unknown source during transport. How do I go about removing these whilst minimizing the amount of material removed?

gugie 

Hard to tell how deep those are, but if it's superficial, I'd just ride it as is. I know it looks like crap, but any attempt to sand it out might create a dip in the rim and you'll feel it pulsing when braking.

Looking at the pics, I'd be more concerned with the number of threads showing on the spokes, they're about 2-3mm short. Assuming they're well tensioned, if all of them are 2-3mm short (4-6 threads showing), you're probably ok, but much more than that and you could have issues.

panzerwagon 

Thanks. One is fairly superficial, but the other feels like it might eat up the pad a bit quicker. I’ll follow your advice and keep an eye on it for now.

I plan to pull up the rim tape so I’ll assess how deep the spokes go in. Is it unusual to have have a longer threaded section?

wrk101

If its deep, you are going to take off too much meat from the rim. If they were light, I tend to gently file them with a very fine file.

delbiker1 

The first picture, the scratch looks fairly deep. Lightly wet sanding with 800 grit, or so, might help a bit, but making it disappear likely to take too much material off. I feel for you, that would drive me crazy. Both the feel of the scratches on the pads and the aesthetics.

rm -rf

A file is too rough. 320 might work, but 400 or finer is slower for more control. Wet it with water and wrap on a small sanding block. I can buy one sheet of wet-or-dry sandpaper at the local hardware store, like Ace Hardware, or probably at an auto parts store. Those sheets are handy to have around the house, anyway.

I don't try to get rid of the pits at all, I just smooth off all the raised edges around the pits. The block can be a piece of wood or even a small plastic box with a flat surface.. It's surprisingly easy to sand a an unwanted dip into aluminum, as I found out many years ago when trying to smooth out a rim seam that wasn't quite flat.

I've gone over new rims that had a rough milled surface with some 400 grit, folded a few times to a narrow strip, pressed with a finger, and spin the wheel on the bike. I'm careful to stay only on the brake track.

gugie 

Generally speaking, proper spoke length will have zero threads showing, but you can be too long as well - the nipple threads can bottom out where the threads end. You can google "bicycle spoke thread length" and get lots of info.

bark_eater 

I'd try and burnish the high spots down with a smooth metal rod. Some thing like a valve stem would be ideal, but a screw driver shaft would work.

SurferRosa

Smooth braking is far more important than appearance. Use a digital caliper to understand what you're starting with. Maybe you can sand it down a little bit; maybe you can't. Go slow and take a ride in between sanding sessions to understand the changes on braking performance.

panzerwagon 

Thanks all for the feedback. I like the burnishing idea. I’m not concerned about looks, just don’t want the rim slowly shredding the brake pad.

The rims are otherwise really nice, almost no wear, and mounted to high-flange campy hubs. Didn’t realize super champion competition 27” hooked clinchers were 23mm wide.

randyjawa 

I use a broken piece of a smooth file to remove wheel rim marks. You do not want to remove gouges as doing so will result in a thinned rim wall and grabby braking. Using the short piece of file, I slowly and carefully remove only the protruding parts of a scratch. The result will not look much better but the shredding of brake pads will be dramatically reduced.

Additionally, I often times dress an entire rim braking surface in an effort to get rid on the splotchy anodized material that, in my opinion, destroys the appearance of a rim and, with a bit of practice can actually end up looking pretty good. Once again, working slowly and carefully is the key to a successful result.