Hondaman,
You're exactly right about 'breaking them in together', except today we are suffering an added twist to the story. The sprockets we are seeing from China (and that is ALL of them, now) are being precision-cast to final size, not hog-cut as in the past. This leaves a grainy finish on the sprocket teeth today, plainly visible when you get the sprockets, that wears off and jams the links of your new chain, ruining it in about 500 miles or less. So, I have long advised running the first few hundred miles using the OLD chain on the new sprockets to eat this junk off, to save that new chain.
Question for you Hondaman. Can you buff/polish the new sprockets to get rid of the grainy finish???
Just curious if that would solve the "gritty" problem. And due to old timers disease, Thank You Edward for reminding me to review "The Book".
Thanks,
Charlie
I actually tried that: I used a Dremel tool and one of the real small sanding drums. It's hard to prevent damage to the surface (making it non-round at the base of the roots), though. I did it to one of those "counterfeit?" JT countersprockets (17T size), not wanting to try to do 48 teeth on a rear one(!). It literally takes seconds to smooth it off, so if you have the patience I'm sure it would work all right. I might suggest also 'breaking' the sharp edges of the teeth while you're at it. I also (and ALWAYS) trim the teeth tips and sides like Honda did on their OEM sprockets of the 1970-1996 era, too. All of the JT/EMGO sprockets I have include too-tall tooth tips, and too wide at the tops as well. I would someday like to make a rotating jig that would slowly spin these sprockets for me while I trimmed off the tips and side angles of the teeth to be more like the Honda version. Yeah, it's probably getting anal, but when you get it on the pavement and hit 2nd gear, realizing that there is NO chain noise or vibration, it suddenly feels worth the extra effort. 
Mark,
In your book you mentioned that you were planing on offering Honda-design sprockets. Is that still in the works?
I still have a couple of them left, but they are/were so expensive that I only sold one. At the same time I got mine finished, JT and EMGO both came out with theirs at less than half the price of mine! Prior to that, which triggered my start into the project, only Honda and EMGO made them. At the time, I was slightly higher than Honda, who discontinued them a year later: now they are 3x the JT cost!
So, I've just been using them on bikes I build from 'scratch'. That way I can put some "value added" into mine, compared to a Craigslist offer.
