Just thinking about the post here where ductor is having problems with his arm/wrist fatigue. I have got a western style bar that is a nice height & look good but the wrist placement is no good for me. Are there any engineers/ metal trades out there who could tell me if it would be ok to re-bend the last part of the bar i.e. where the grips & controls fit to suit a more ergonomic angle for me. At the moment I have re-fitted the standard bars that work well but like I said the other bars look better.
Bit of a tough one mate if its adding to a bend ie increasing it, and you have the tooling ie tube bender yes you can but chrome will crack.
if its pulling a bend back ie straightening the bend no it will flattern and stress crack.
From my view point put em on ebay and buy another set i for one would not ride around on rebent bars mate
Brucey
I've been doing a fair bit of reading up about bars lateley and the general consensus is don't scew with existing bars, most would not even drill new holes in them let alone do cold bends. With the variety of choices around you will find some that suit you and most are fairly in-expensive.
HD Development in Melbourne used to bend bars to your requirements, probably still do, helpful but pricey.
Thanks folks, it was just a thought, the part where the controls/hands go are just about 10deg out. But I guess I will not bother as it seems a bit risky. One does not put a lot of force on them riding but can at times maneuvering the beast around, but having said that the consequences are not worth thinking about.
yes the materials used in handle bars are usually a DOM tube (Drawn over mandrel) tube and usually a good quality steel with low elongation ie 10% or less not like the CREW tube found in your local metal stockist (Cold rolled electric Welded) with 20% elongation.
Its not to say you cannot go and buy some 3 mm thick tube and weld it up as i have done in the past to make clip ons and frames etc but thats for me nobody else so i take the risk.
All steels when worked ie bent will go through the resistance phase then take the deformation leaving some stresses locked into the joint with annealing (Heat) them it changes the micro structure of the steel releasing those forces and then rebending them changes where those forces are.
Interesting though after riding my iron for a month know the vibration through the bars is quite pronounced i think the resonanace through the bars could be tuned out with a bit more weight in the bar ends ie jap bikes which would give us a chance of copying them.
By the way if you made a set of heavier bars say 3 mm thick the dampening effect would be better than say 1.5 mm chrome moly Hint Hint
PS do not drill holes anywhere near a bend in bars its called a stress riser and yes it will crack
Just my thoughts
Sorry hound dog just a humble fitter and turner who can weld a little bit, and some 25 years in a manufacturing / engineering / design / technical / quality type roles.
and yes i have to teach the engineers how to actually make things.
