Making a handlebar

I've got a question to someone with brazing/framebuilding knowledge. Is the top bar on this picture difficult to make?

For an amateur like me, it looks like it could be simple enough. Three sections of 22.2mm cro-mo stell, miter the middle section, braze. Can't be that easy*, can it?

*assuming you're not me and know what you're doing

That would be the easiest of the lot to make.

If you make a mitre it needs to be 100000% accurate. The edges all need to meet perfectly. Imagine laying one sheet of glass on top of another, there wouldn't even be an air gap. The edges would need to meet up like that.

It's things like perfect mitres that take the skill and time, hence the price of good quality hand built frames.

It's totally doable and probably cheap. Only if you have the equipment and skills though.

If you were to tig weld it you could get away with tollerances that are a bit more open. But still, the closer the better

I should probably add that you need it 1000% if you want a real good job. You could get away with less if you wanted to compromise

Well, depends what a real good job is. Structurally sound and stong = essential. Cosmetically perfect = couldn't care less. It'll all be covered in tape anyway.

So, following simple logic, if I get some 22.2mm steel tubes, then use a website like this to calculate the mitering and carefully spend a couple of nights filing it to shape, then all I need is someone with a torch to braze them in place, right?

It's such a simple shape that I'm assuming it can be done without a jig, or not? Just mark on the angled side tubes where they connect with the straight one, and set the thing on fire (I say 'just', but who knows).

Tempting.

If you're using mild steel and brazing it, I've heard from @Hulsroy that you don't need to be that accurate.

Or you could just buy the aftermarket version from SJS Cycles.

They have stuff like that? I couldn't find anything similar on their website, maybe it's me being thick.

Wow. I was not talking about handlrbars

In "handlebar - others";

https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/handlebars/600-humpert-boomerang-handlebars-254mm-clamp-black/

Thanks, but looks like something else entirely. The appeal of the H bar to me is having 4 hand positions: hoods-like (on the junction), swept back, stretched out in front (semi-aero?) and straight narrow grip. The boomerang has a very small gain forward, and a dip. Hard to see more than one comfortable grip position there.

You could approximate it with a set of On-One Mary handlebars and some bolt-on bar ends.

In fact, a bar with a straight mid section and an aggressive sweep would probably do an even better job, you'd just need slight cranked bar-ends. I've got a pair of short straight post-moderne ones for sale if you want to prototype it for cheepz

If you're TIG'ing it then mitres need to be tight, if your fillet brazing it I've seen some terrifying gaps filled with brass. The issue becomes how straight the joint comes out. On a frame, that's pretty critical, on a handlebar, with 4130 that you can 'hard correct' less so. If it's just for you, and you're not too concerned with your teeth, go mental. If it's for your nan, maybe pay someone to do it!

Yeah, what you can get away with on a rack is less than on bars, but I don't think you can realistically achieve "non-air-gap" accuracy with hand tools full stop.

Very similar Titec bars on eBay

It is doable, John at chickens frame emporium showed me a mitre he had just done when I was up there a while back, you literally couldn't see the join it was so close. Impressive stuff.

I used to have those, it's the closet I can find to the expensive Jones H bar.

bolt-on bar ends

I like the way you think, it's something I gave some consideration. If I could make something like this I'd be happy.

Even then, I'd be concerned with the bulge where the bar end connects with the main bar. That's the place I'd probably use the most, the 'hoods' position. I'll have a look around and see what I can find, perhaps there are legs on this.

One might notice it's starting to resemble Casey's Crazy bars. There's a couple of problems I make myself seeing on it so I can keep fantasising about blowtorching things: it looks terrible, and the hoods position has two tubes meeting at an angle. Don't know how the hand is supposed to rest there.

I keep finding that the DIY route is only half delirious. I reckon getting the tubes from ceeway might not cost much (3 x 410mm lengths of Gara 22.2), mitering is for free and a pleasant and rewarding activity (in my head, ok). The missing part of the puzzle is the brazing, I've never been close to a torch and I'd have to either find a workshop that allows someone like me to burn stuff, or find a kind soul that'd be willing to do me a job for an exchange of money.

Will keep brewing this.

I'll just paste here some of the bars I've been looking at that give me hope I'm not suicidal:

^ Seven Tiberius

^ Groovy Luv Handles

^ Soma Eagle

I think the issue with using bar-ends is that they're unlikely to be perfectly aligned with the swept section. That may not be an issue depending on exactly how you want to hold them and how much you can cover up with tape. The bulge will mostly be behind the bar, so it shouldn't get in the way of your hands.

For making the bar the biggest challenge for DIYing it would seem to me to be getting the mitres exactly co-planar so that the swept sections are correclt aligned. Do you have a jig to use?

If you want bar end, another option is the Velo Orange;

Wouldn't need a jig, just a centre line on the tube and align the mitres.

If I were you on this, I would get an old frame and chop it up for tubes and practice making the mitres and just see how that goes. If you nail that you could then get some nicer more appropriate tube and then just find yourself a place that does metal fabrication and ask them to stick it all together.

There are mitre calculators on line. You put on the tube sizes and angles it then makes you a template. You print it out, stick it on the tube and cut your mitre.

An attempt will be made. Ordered steel seat tubes of 22.2Ø, should arrive early next week. Spoke to a fabricator that will tig it for me. It's all about how patient I'll be with the mitering, I suppose.

which wall thickness did you go for?

Excellent question. It's porky, that much I know.

Originally intended as BMX seatpost, in my ignorance it can only mean it'll be sturdy enough. Hoping it's around the 1.5mm mark. It was the cheaper steel tube I could find, with the advantages of not being a 3m tube and already having some kind of finishing (don't want to worry about what's going on under the tape)

For clarity, the plan is to put together 3 seatposts of 40cm.